How Prejudiced Are You? Recognizing and Combating Unconscious Bias | Jennefer Witter | TEDxAlbany

what I want everyone in this room to do is to look at this photograph just look at it for a few seconds and then start to think what does this person do who is she now we all have heard the phrase you only get one chance to make a first impression but what if that first impression is wrong totally off the mark what if that first impression is based on how we feel and how we see each other rather than seeing the person for who they are and what they are first impressions are the basis of implicit bias so I ask you again take a look at this person and now I'm going to ask for your participation how many of you first saw the wheelchair just raise your hand okay how many of you saw the person was a woman raise your hands how many people here saw a sexualized individual no one because this woman her name is Danielle shape Huck and she is a PhD now how many people thought she was an academic okay how many people thought when they first saw her first impressions that she was a fashion model no one how many people thought that she was a sex expert anyone no because that's who she is she is a runway model she has modeled at New York Fashion Week she is a psychologist who talks about Seth relationships and dating to the disability community and she positions herself as a sexpert now when you first saw that picture no one saw a person who could do these things so just imagine being doctor che puck and having to go out into the world every day and have that perception thinking that it's reality for her everyday life and that's the basis of implicit bias implicit bias is very straightforward it is a prejudice of which we are unaware now when we hear the word prejudice it sets off all alarms most of us don't think of ourselves as being racist but there is a difference someone who is a racist embraces their ideology they march through the streets with tiki torches saying I don't like this group or a group of people for their faith religion whatever but for most of us if anyone said that you have a prejudice we would be offended we would get defensive we would get upset how dare you say that to me but I want everyone in this room to know that you do have a prejudice you do you do you do and so do I but unlike others we are here to address it and to uncover it now with implicit bias it starts at an amazingly young age as young as five years old and it's focused in on race and gender as we get older that implicit bias gets hardened and expanded and to wait into gender into sexuality and how does that happen it happens because we are influenced by what we are around so it could be your geographic region it is our families it is our religion it's our cultural background and we absorb it without even realizing it and the older we get the harder it gets and what is most disturbing is that we go out into the world and we project onto others we write the stories of others like you just saw me you began to write my story even before I began to speak just as we were writing Danielle's story and it happened so fast in most studies from the time that I went from the podium to this stage you began to form your perception of me with your bias kicking in for most people is five to ten seconds so with that knowledge it's like okay we have implicit bias that editor does but most of us don't think you know this could impact me in my life my work who I live with where I live it can impact my economic beam with implicit bias there's so many negatives that we don't even know about let's look at the workplace now you see those two men up there right you know they're both white they're both attractive no they are dressed well they're both smiling looking into the camera but what is the obvious difference between the two of them height now let's just say these two men go into an interview for CEO position all right and everything is equal okay let's just say they went to an Ivy League school they worked at a fortune 100 company on paper they're equal but when they walk in they're not an implicit bias tends to lean to men who are taller because tall men project what confidence leadership and if you think that's not correct I can tell you that less than 14 percent of American men are 6 feet tall 14 percent yet over 60 percent of CEOs are 6 feet tall isn't that amazing think about the presidents how tall they are they're all basically over 6 feet tall Clinton 6-2 Trump 6-3 the shortest president was Jimmy Carter at five nine financial consequences we women have so many things to think about particularly the way we look unfairly though it is it's just the way it is but here's the thing look at this woman she is attractive dress well a professional but implicit bias kicks in and here's something that is absolutely again unthinkable for American women who are 1% of 1% increase in their body weight they have a 6 percent decrease in family income and that's according to the National Bureau of Economic Research so with those first impressions with implicit bias so far you're not getting job you want you're not being paid equally but it's like you're already in the workplace what about your name this woman her birth name is Erin and when she started going out and sending out her resumes in the 1990s to tech companies she got zero response someone said change her first name her last name is McCleary so she went from Erin McCleary to Mack McLovin uh thing on her resume except her first name she went to zero percent what do you think happened when she sent it out to Mack just give me a percent just any ninety seventy percent response rate just by changing her name she was the subject of a Fortune magazine article because of that for people whose names are Christina Allison let me be blunt with white sounding names according to the National Bureau of Economic Research they can send out ten resumes and they will get one response back if your name is LaToya marcus dwight black sounding names you will have to send out fifteen resumes to get one response back so how can we climb the ladder how can we even think about being a CEO when we can't even get through the door because of how our name sounds and think about it how many times have you heard a name a Kendra versus a Victoria and you me at least Knapp to a thought process that may or may not be correct and think about for you how people are perceiving you simply because of your name and how it may be impacting you think about it in your personal life I want everybody here to think about your best friends your three best friends do they look like you do they have the same kind of college background education do they live around you know where you live do they people you live around you know same kind of income level think about it because birds of a feather what is it exactly it is natural human inclination but here's the thing when you're around people like yourself it confirms that bias according to CNN sixty-nine percent of whites live among other whites 59% of Hispanics live among other Hispanics and with blacks its 41% so it's like every day when we get up when we go out to our cars or to work it is confronting what everyone in this room is unaware of but you can do something we can always do something individuation remember what I said about dr. Shay puck that when we saw her a woman in a wheelchair we were thinking anything but fashion model anything but sex expert some of us thought academic which was right but the next time you see someone and this is hard to do because as I said with implicit bias it's so ingrained as try not to create the person's story have them created look at me I grew up in the South Bronx the moment I said that images right that's okay single mother etc and people who don't know me will say things to me I have been told that the reason why I speak good English is because I must have watched TV a lot okay but no one ever thinks that because I grew up in the South Bronx with the children I grew up with when is a state Supreme Court justice another one is an attorney educator doctor so the moment I said South Bronx people began to write stories so try to let the other person create their own story get out of your comfort zone now don't come up to me if you're a white person and say I want to be your friend cause you're black and I know everybody here it's very nice but it's not gonna work so right now it's the holiday season right all right Kwanzaa go to a Kwanzaa festival Kwanzaa is an african-american heritage event celebrating african-american heritage it lasts for seven days you will not be carded at the door if you're not black you'll be welcomed Albany has a great Irish Museum go to it get out of your comfort zone you can take baby steps doing it the other thing is take a test and the privacy of your own home Harvard has an implicit association test you can do it online you will not it's anonymous there are multiple tests you can do gender you can do race you can do sexuality and you take it and then at the end it will show where your bias lays and trust me because I taken the test I am shocked appalled and disgusted with myself but I learn and that's the process of why we are here so with implicit bias we all have it it is necessarily mean that we have to embrace it but we can learn from it and in this era of so many things pulling us apart I think that once we acknowledge and address we will find out that you and I have a lot more in common than we do not having so many differences will become a richer person for it thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 14,770

Rating: 4.6939893 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Social Science, Consciousness

Id: tEoajtG90qY

Length: 15min 49sec (949 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 07 2020