To Our New Alien Friends – Let Me Introduce You to Life in America

Imagine for a moment that you are the person (Big Cheese) responsible for helping 100 aliens from a distant galaxy become acclimated to life in America.  Your job is to make their assimilation into our culture as smooth as possible as they settle their families in a suburb just outside Washington DC.  You have been given a staff of 12 to accomplish this goal and they are eager to get started.  Still – even with your staff of 12, you feel as if you have a daunting task.  You may ask yourself- “How can we explain life in America?”  “What information is most important to our alien friends?”  After some reflection, you begin to gain some confidence since America has been described as a “melting pot”, so maybe, it will not be all that difficult to have the aliens “fit in”.  Now, you must consider how to go about this assignment? 

The first suggestion by the total team (all 12) is to have the aliens go through a public school program from kindergarten through high school in the Washington DC area.  Certainly that would give them a good idea as to who we are as a people.  The problem here is that the training needs to be completed within a 90 day period so that would not work.  Forced to come up with another solution the team decides (with your blessing) to divide the 12 into 4 separate small teams of 3 to simplify the training. The team leaders agreed that each team would place the aliens in front of a television for their training.  (All four teams agreed that the TV should have at least 60 inch screen since it is a government project and there is no reason to skimp).  The teams agree that the aliens would quickly learn about our culture and the assimilation process would take 90 days or less.  What an idea – what a stroke of genius!  What better way to learn about life in America than to watch 10 – 12 hours per day of television!!!

Now the crack teams training discussion turns to what TV networks they should have the aliens watch.  They agreed to allow each team leader to make that decision on their own. 

Team 1 consisting of Jim J, a small business owner from Birmingham, Alabama as well as  Susan F, a school teacher from Harrisburg, PA and Juan D, a dentist from Seattle, Washington. The team decided to put the aliens in front of the Fox Channel for at least 7 hours per day and then move onto some sports (ESPN) for another 4 hours.  Their logic being Fox is “Fair and Balanced” so their political views would be fair and there was a need for sports since “all work and no play makes any alien a dull alien”. 

Team 2 consisting of Shaniqua H, a nurse from Philadelphia, PA., Howard J, an accountant from Sacramento, California and Francis E, a social worker from Springfield, Massachusetts.  This team felt that a more accurate depiction of life in America could be found on MSNBC and PBS.  They suggested 8 hours of TV on MSNBC and 3 hours on a PBS station.  Team 2 wanted to give their trainees a great dose of politics since the new Aliens would soon need to declare their political party of choice. 

Team 3 had a different take. Team 3 included Heather M, a hair stylist from Arlington Heights, Illinois, Abdul P, an engineer from Teaneck, NJ, and Jerome H, an auto plant worker from Milwaukie, Wisconsin.  Team 3 members agreed that CNN and Bloomberg would be the way to go for the training.  This trio suggested a heavy dose (7 hours) of CNN with the balance of the day (4 hours) watching Bloomberg.  Similar to Team 2, Team 3 felt that there was definitely a need to understand our political system but also a need to understand finances since the aliens would need to make their way (financially) in this world! 

The members of Team 4 included Giuseppe J, an auto mechanic from Akron, Ohio, Jamil T, a primary care doctor from Clearwater, Florida, and Anne P, a waitress from Boise, Idaho.   This team opted for a heavy dose of the Lifetime channel (7 hours) with a lesser dose of HGTV – about 4 hours per day.  Their logic being that Lifetime really explains relationships between Earthlings and HGTV would help the Aliens get acclimated to different housing options as well as various construction techniques. 

Alright readers – a simple question – which team do you think had the most success and why? As you think about that question, many of you might want to go back and look at the teams again as well as their alien training regiment.  You might even begin to ask yourself; “which of these channels do I watch and why do I choose this channel over another?”  Go ahead and do it – take your time.  

WE’LL TAKE A 30 SECOND COMMERCIAL BREAK

OK – which did you choose?  The answer really doesn’t matter.  What does matter however, is we all have some preferences and it might be a good idea to understand the bias that each of us has developed over time.  We tend to watch networks that help us “confirm” our way of thinking.  We probably don’t take the time to question our beliefs and look at issues from a different point of view.  If you get your news from Fox, chances are good that you rarely tune into MSNBC, CNN, or PBS.  If you listen to or watch PBS, you probably are not inclined to view Sean Hannity on the Fox channel.  If you love the Rachel Maddow show, you more than likely can’t stand the views of Bill O’Reilly or Jesse Watters and you probably do not tune into their shows.  You get the point!!  

SOO… an important question is: how do our biases impact our ability to listen to someone that has a different viewpoint?  Let’s admit that we all have a world view and this world view colors our thinking.  We may try to convince ourselves that we don’t ‘lean one way or another’ but we do and the sooner we admit that we are not a Tabula Rasa (Blank Slate) the sooner we can work on really listening to someone that sees the world a little differently!  Take a baby step and tune into a station that you do not like and give it 15 minutes.  Maybe you will begin to see “reality” just a little differently!  It also might help you when you get on the phone with one of our alien friends!

Please let me know your thoughts!  Thanks, Tom