COMMENT | A relative’s house, recently renovated, was burgled. My first suspects – an inside job, the contract migrant workers. Who else would know the unsecured sections and layout of the house?

News reports of rising crime and alarmist anecdotes of home invasions in the gated community reinforced my suspicion. That was an uncomfortable thought stemming from an underlying bias against migrant workers.

I may think I’m a rational being who understands the logic of his actions and thoughts. But when it comes to reacting to perceived differences in other groups, much of what I think and say is often done without much thought.

I gravitate towards negative narratives. I pigeonhole and relate to others by the labels I unconsciously tag on 'them'. I am implicitly biased. I am a bigot. Are you? (you can find out for yourself with Harvard University’s Implicit Association Test).

My implicit bias could easily fester into overt bigotry – unless I consciously listen to the personal stories of the migrant workers as individuals compelled to leave their family for higher paid work in other countries. It’s that simple – listen first before judging.

As Pope Francis said of the US President Donald Trump before they met in the Vatican, “I never judge someone before I listen to the person. I can't do that...we will talk and things will come up…I will tell him what I think, he will tell me what he thinks, but I never wanted to judge someone before I listen to the person first."

With the divisive racial politics in Malaysia, we could do a lot better if we listen to and engage more with each other. For a while, we listened and came together during the MH370 and MH17 tragedies. We reached out to social media. But when it came to competing for a fairer share of a diminishing economic pie, race and religion inevitably determine where we stand in the queue...