Sniffing Out Prejudice
I just learned that my 17-year old sister can’t smell.
Even though she has never been able to smell, no one believed her (shame on us!). After she pestered my parents enough over the last few years, they finally scheduled her an appointment with an Otolaryngologist — commonly known as an ENT doctor.
After completing the exam, the ENT diagnosed her with congenital anosmia or “smell blindness.”
An interesting aside: As part of the examination, the doctor asked if there was anything she could smell. She said that she could smell hand sanitizer and bug spray. He said that was a significant indicator that she had anosmia. “You’re not smelling anything; the alcohol is just stinging your nose hairs.”
When my sister told me about her diagnosis, I asked if this meant her ability to taste was diminished?
“No, I can taste everything.”
Sure, I thought. You think you can taste, but you don’t have any concept of what something actually tastes like. You’ve never been able to smell, so how could you fully taste anything?
Well, I was wrong. I recently developed anosmia as a symptom of Covid-19 (I’m fine! It was an unpleasant experience for sure, but relatively speaking, I made it out okay).
I didn’t, however, lose my sense of taste.
And guess what? Food tastes the same, even without smelling it.
This benign experience helped me better understand a more important truth. We often project our prejudices, biases, and beliefs onto others and make inaccurate judgments about what is and isn’t true.
This way of judging others is partly why we are dealing with racial inequality, sexual assault, and sexual harassment crises in the Army.
Many of these problems stem from leaders not believing soldiers when they say, “Something happened to me, and I need your help.”
If you’ve never been discriminated against, harassed, or assaulted, that’s a wonderful, privileged existence. That’s been my existence.
But, that doesn’t mean others aren’t experiencing those things.
If we do just one thing better, let’s start with believing soldiers.
If you enjoyed this content, please subscribe to the jumo brief today to receive a free weekly newsletter in your inbox every Saturday morning! You will receive weekly content like this and much more!
The jumo brief helps leaders keep up to date on social commentary, news, and current events that are relevant to the Army.
The views expressed are those of Brennan Randel and do not reflect the official position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or any government agency.
