Sorry Not Sorry

Witty Banter

As some of you remember, my last blog was about invisible biases. But honestly? I wasn’t satisfied with it. I watered it down. I clipped its teeth because I thought maybe it would be “too much,” maybe you guys wouldn’t like it. Truth is, I had a harsher version written, a version that bled frustration but I was too much of a coward to post it. Then after talking to some people it hit me, like a car straight to the chest, that this whole thing, this writing, was never about pleasing anyone. It was about saying what’s real. What’s raw. What’s mine. So why the hell should I twist my words into something soft just to fit into someone else’s comfort zone? Why should I shrink? Why should I whisper? I shouldn’t. I won’t. So here it is, my version of that blog. No sugarcoating, no filters, no apologies. If it stings, let it sting. If it feels like a slap, good maybe you needed one. This is for every so-called “conservative,” every self-proclaimed “rational” mind who hides behind tradition and “the way things are” just to protect their own privilege. Read it. Hate it. I don’t care. This one’s not dressed up for you. It’s the truth, and it’s brutal.

Sorry not Sorry

Bias is the ugliest monster we’ve built, and the sickest part is that we feed it daily, dress it up in polite words, and call it “human nature.” We don’t even hide it. We carry it around like it’s a family heirloom. It sits in our conversations, our jokes, our hiring decisions, our classrooms, our goddamn dinner tables. It’s the background noise of life, so constant that most people don’t even notice it anymore. And that’s what makes it lethal. Bias doesn’t growl, doesn’t scratch, doesn’t come kicking your door in. It whispers. And the whispers are worse than screams, because they slip inside your head until you mistake them for your own thoughts.

We walk around pretending we’re rational creatures. Pretending our opinions are the fruit of logic, research, reason. That’s the biggest joke we’ve ever told ourselves. Strip away the excuses, peel back the layers, and you’ll see the truth: we’re puppets. Our strings are pulled by biases stitched into us since birth: by family, by media, by culture, by religion, by whatever group we’re desperate to belong to. Prejudice is inherited like a last name. And then we have the audacity to strut around acting like we chose it ourselves, like it’s a badge of free thought.

Bias is the poison that makes you decide someone is smarter just because they look like you. Bias is the invisible weight that tips your “neutral” scales every time you judge a stranger. It’s the reason you laugh at a degrading joke, not because it’s funny, but because you don’t want to be the killjoy. It’s the little shove that makes you pick what’s familiar instead of what’s right, the safe lie over the inconvenient truth. And the ugliest part? Most people don’t even notice they’re doing it. They act like bias is something that exists “out there,” in the mouths of racists, sexists, fascists, the “bad people.” But it’s not just them. It’s you. It’s me. It’s every damn one of us.

And when you finally see it, it’s disgusting. It’s like realizing you’ve been carrying worms in your veins your whole life. You want to rip them out, burn them, cut yourself open if you have to. But most people never get there. They’d rather live blind, because blindness is easier. Blindness means you don’t have to question yourself, don’t have to admit you’ve been complicit. Awareness is terrifying. Awareness means maybe shutting the fuck up instead of assuming your view is the universal one. Awareness means catching yourself before you spit out something “harmless” that’s actually a blade in someone else’s ribs. Awareness means putting yourself under the microscope, every single day. And the brutal truth? Most people don’t have the stomach for it.

We call it “subtle.” Subtle bias, unconscious bias, quiet bias, like putting a soft adjective in front of it makes it less vicious. But subtle bias kills. It kills chances. It kills dreams. It kills confidence. It kills people’s sense of worth before they even know who they are. It keeps kids from believing they’re good enough. It locks entire groups in cages built from low expectations, sideways glances, unspoken exclusions. It doesn’t need a burning cross to ruin a life. It just needs a thousand little cuts, every single day, until the person bleeds out invisibly.

You want to see the real monster? Don’t waste your time looking at the man screaming slurs on a street corner, that guy’s too obvious. Look instead at the teacher who tells a girl she’s “too bossy” but praises a boy for “showing leadership.” Look at the job recruiter who tosses a resume because the name looks “too foreign.” Look at the parent who tells their son not to cry because “men don’t do that,” or their daughter to smile because “that’s prettier.” Look at the quiet nods, the polite silences, the conversations that end with “let’s not make this political.” That’s the beast. Not a monster in the shadows, but one smiling at you across the dinner table while it eats everything alive.

Bias doesn’t need to roar to win. It thrives on silence. It thrives when you let it slide. It grows every time you laugh along, every time you swallow your discomfort instead of calling it out. Every time you stay quiet to “keep the peace,” you hand the monster a new weapon. People love to think neutrality is safe. Neutrality is not safe, it’s surrender. It’s feeding the monster your own hands.

And then comes the biggest excuse: “Bias is just human nature.” No. Bias is cowardice dressed up as instinct. It’s laziness wearing the mask of survival. Yes, the brain takes shortcuts, but we’ve built entire cultures on refusing to challenge them. We excuse ourselves with evolution, with biology, with history. “It’s always been this way.” So what? So has disease, so has war, so has cruelty and we still fight them. The fact that bias has always been with us doesn’t make it forgivable. It makes it even more shameful that we haven’t ripped it out by now.

Every empire has run on bias, and every collapse has its fingerprints all over the rubble. Slavery, genocide, colonisation, apartheid, segregation, pick your horror, dig deep, and you’ll find bias sitting smugly at the root. And we keep repeating the same damn cycles because we’re too weak to admit we’re still drinking from the same poisoned well.

Bias is endless. It’s in the books we call “classics” while ignoring who was excluded from writing them. It’s in the movies we praise, the “heroes” we glorify, the histories we recite without ever asking who wrote them. It’s in the awards we hand out, the people we celebrate, the voices we silence. It’s in who we save and who we sacrifice. It’s in every seat of power, in every vote cast, in every friendship circle that looks suspiciously uniform. It’s in every religion, every culture, every government that pretends it’s “fair.” Bias is the quiet war we fight every day, and most of us are losing without even knowing we’re on the battlefield.

So here’s the brutal honesty: you’re biased. I’m biased. Everyone you know is biased. Denying it doesn’t make you innocent, it makes you dangerous. Because if you can’t admit it, you’ll never fight it. And if you don’t fight it, you’re not neutral, you’re not passive, you’re part of the rot. You’re the silence that feeds it. You’re the shrug that lets it slide. You’re the coward who would rather keep your comfort than risk confrontation. And every time you do that, the monster grows stronger, taller, hungrier.

So the choice is simple. You either face it, or you feed it. And if you’re not willing to face it, then don’t fool yourself, you’re not a bystander. You’re the hand holding the spoon.