Every day we make assumptions. From the moment we awake each morning we are making assumptions about everything around us. We assume that our loved ones want to eat the same thing this morning as they have every morning this week. We assume that because the weather was hot yesterday or because the forecast predicts it will be hot today, we should wear a certain outfit to be comfortable. We assume that our morning routine will happen as it does every morning without interruption, and we will arrive at work on time. And so the day goes on, filled with assumptions that keep us from having to overthink every minute of our life.

Assumptions are not bad when we recognize how they can support us in moving through our day and getting our work done.  If every day that we woke up we had to think and plan each moment as if it were the first time we had experience a situation, we would not get much done.

Assumptions become a problem—a serious problem–when they are unexamined. Assumptions about what we will eat or how we will dress are not the issue. Assumptions about what is the right way to speak or act or live or experience the world around us are the assumptions we need to be willing to examine. For those of us who identify as someone within whom white dominant culture resides deep, this is particularly true. The assumptions we make about what society looks like mirrors what dominant culture tells us is the way the world should look. This has happened for years, decades. We have been blind to the experiences of others and assumed that everyone experiences the world the way we do. We had nothing to compare or contrast our reality so we never had to and never saw the need.

We assume that an educated person will speak a particular way and if they speak with phrases of their own culture or use grammar that comes out of their traditions, they must be uneducated and need to be corrected as to the “correct” way to speak or write.

We assume that if someone is living in a suburban community in the Midwest, they will speak English. If they are in a space where everyone around them is of their own culture except for one white person who happens to wander in, that person feels it is their right to insist that everyone will speak English so they can understand, even if no one is talking to them.

These kinds of assumptions can be dangerous if we do not challenge them. We need to inspect our assumptions and ask a simple question: “Is it true?” If we answer yes, we can follow it with, “Is it true for us or for everyone?” If the answer is that it is true for us but maybe not for everyone, we lean in with curiosity so we can learn something we had not known before. If we believe that our assumption should be true for everyone, we need to ask ourselves why we believe that. If we are speaking about the assumption that every human has a right to be treated with respect and affirmation and have access to the same resources as others, those are probably good assumptions to have. If we assume that someone needs to change the way they observe or don’t observe a particular holiday, for example, we need to sit with that and ask ourselves why it matters to us how someone else lives their life.

Examining our assumptions is a step towards opening our eyes to see the world in a new way.