In my last column, (“Security in action in Ashland,” June 4, 2026, pg. 8) I described my visit to Ashland to participate in a bias response workshop with the Ashland Jewish community. The moderators were a husband-and-wife team from the Mandala Center for Change in Port Townsend, Wash., and they were brought to town by the Kulanu Group of the Southern Oregon Jewish Coalition.
Fifty people gave up a lovely Sunday to spend eight hours at this workshop. Many people already knew each other; the community there is not large, but I would describe it as close-knit, and many community members attend events at all three Jewish organizations there. I’ll add here that the moderators were very clear that we didn’t have to define what was biased and what wasn’t. We weren’t there to debate issues within the Jewish community about what defines bias, but simply there to learn how to respond to it as individuals, if we felt it.
The morning started with some icebreakers, and we moved on to collecting stories about bias we had experienced. It became very clear that most people were struggling with how to respond in conversations with people they already knew - friends, family, conversations that happen around a dinner table or at a party, who might say something offensive. While there were instances where people had been randomly accosted by strangers in stores or in public, dealing with that situation was less common.
As conversations were practiced, we developed a list of potential strategies. An important aspect of strategy decision-making is figuring out what one’s goal is. What is the outcome you’re looking for, and what strategy helps get me there? For most people, they simply want their brain to craft a cogent response in the moment, not an hour later. Here are the techniques we came up with. Due to space constraints, I’ve kept them simple bullet points this week, and next column, I’ll go into more depth on each one:
- Are you open to a deeper conversation on this topic?
- Starting with a statement of respect for the other person.
- Knowing relevant statistics and knowledge/facts about the issue.
- Invite a third party to join the conversation to help diffuse energy or mediate.
- Start with “Yes set”- a method of asking questions where you know the answer will be ‘yes’ to put the other person in an affirmative mindset.
- Naming your feelings to the other person.
- Agreeing to disagree.
- Walking away.
Employing techniques like these gives us time for our brains to relax, to process, and to think about appropriate responses. We increase our ability to move past that “flooded” stage of not knowing how to respond. We practice letting our brains calm a bit, so that other thoughts can enter, and we can generate responses that might be useful in that moment.
And, at the end of the day, these skills take practice. They’re not tools in the toolbox that you just whip out and use perfectly now that you have them. Like all training, they require practice. It’s hearing the material, it’s listening to how it’s used, it’s internalizing the information, it’s applying and reapplying and reapplying and practicing again. Like anything hard or uncomfortable to do, each time you do it, you probably learn something from the experience and build on it for the next experience.
I would love to bring this workshop to the Portland area. I’m not sure if I can, but I have no doubt it would be well received. In the meantime, I’m going to incorporate some of these bias-response examples into my Navigating Conflict class, and I encourage you to join me in my regular Zoom classes (jewishportland.org/events/security-training). If your group or community would like an in-person class, let me know.