Unconscious Bias and How to Disrupt It (2022)
Have you ever had an interaction with someone of a different race than you or someone who perhaps had a disability and wondered if you’d said or done something wrong? If thinking about this gives you some initial discomfort, you’re far from alone. Most of us would like to be more aware of how people who are different from us experience the world. We want to learn to treat others better, particularly those with whom we work in our professional lives, but we aren’t sure where to start. Whether you work in a role such as Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DEI), Human Resources, Training and Development, or simply want to better understand how identity and unconscious bias affect you and your colleagues in the workplace, it’s crucial to begin by breaking down these terms and examining what they really mean. Once we have a fresh understanding of this, we will take a conscientious look at how bias tends to play out in US society.
My goal is to encourage honest and constructive conversations around these issues at your organization, which you can facilitate using the Unconscious Bias and How to Disrupt It Discussion Guide based on this article. So, if you’re willing to step out of your comfort zone with me, I think you’ll come away with a new and eye-opening appreciation of some things that have always been intrinsic to your life, possibly without you ever recognizing them.
What Is Identity and Why Is It Important?
You've probably heard a lot about identity, and you may have wondered what it exactly means. I spend a lot of time thinking about it, and not just on my own as a cisgender black man, but as someone deeply interested in how identity shapes perception and how it influences notions of who you are and what you can become. Identity isn’t the incidental expression of our tastes—what we like or dislike, what we love or hate. Identity is the meaningful collection of independent and interlocking characteristics that shape who we are and what we believe. These characteristics take hold and become meaningful to us in three ways: through inheritance, discovery, and adversity. Inheritance controls what is passed down to us from our parents and shows up as visual cues to the outside world as eye color, hair texture, height, race, etc. Discovery informs the characteristics we uncover as we make our way from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. These characteristics, like sexual orientation and spirituality, shape our internal landscape and inform our sense of self. Adversity is about the tough experiences we go through that fundamentally change our outlook on life. The loss of a child, being a caretaker for elderly or ill parents, living in poverty, and catastrophic illness are all crucibles, and they create just as they destroy. It’s this dynamism that makes each and every one of us so unique and beautifully complicated, but it’s also what puts identity at odds with society’s rigid view of how people should be seen.
What is Unconscious Bias?
Unconscious bias is a learned, deeply internalized negative stereotype that shapes the way we perceive others. It’s a blind spot we all have to varying degrees, which makes it especially difficult to recognize. Unconscious bias may present itself in scenarios you’ve experienced or perpetrated as complicity, micro-aggression, passive-aggressiveness, dark humor, sarcasm, or culturally insensitive statements. But bias doesn’t just spring from individuals. In its most devastating form, bias is enshrined in the policies of institutions and organizations under the guise of “best practice,” perpetuating years and, in some instances, decades of inequity. We see institutional bias in the employment system with unfair parental leave policies based on gender; we see it embedded in our educational system where standardized tests like the SAT & ACT can be used by colleges to discriminate based on geographic location, gender, income, and race; and we see it in the criminal justice system with the “broken windows” theory, a policing strategy which disproportionately targets communities of color.
How to Disrupt Unconscious Bias?
Society determines who benefits from privilege, the unearned advantage granted to individuals with favored identities, through cultural norms and laws. Society also determines who should be stigmatized through biases directed at individuals with unfavored identities. Take the identities of ability, race, and gender as an example. A non-disabled white cisgender man, an identity that society favors, has infinitely greater options in housing, education, employment, and healthcare than a mentally-disabled, black transgender woman, an identity that society does not favor. He sails through life buoyed by opportunity and access while she struggles in the cross-currents of bias.
The first step in disrupting unconscious bias begins with each of us as individuals recognizing how society expresses both its preference and disdain for various identities. The second step in disrupting unconscious bias is to exercise radical empathy for individuals who are different from you. Radical empathy finds you examining the lived experience of others with the same grace and intensity in which you examine your own life and experience. Take the first step here with me to unpack, in rank order, the ten most consequential identities in US society—Ability, Gender, Race, Language, Age, Class, Education, Nationality, Sexual Orientation, and Religion.
Table of Contents
Ability Bias | Gender Bias | Race Bias | Language Bias | Age Bias | Class Bias
Education Bias | Nationality Bias | Sexual Orientation Bias | Religious Bias
ABILITY BIAS
Ableness, the degree to which we can do something, exists on a broad spectrum that includes our cognitive, perceptive, and physical abilities. As an aspect of identity, ableness is unique in that it speaks to both our physical and mental capabilities. This duality means an individual can be both physically non-disabled and cognitively learning disabled, a distinction that underscores the complexity of identity and the limitation of our labels.
Privilege is not knowing you're its beneficiary. Most of us can live our entire lives, from beginning to end, and never for one second recognize the deep sense of wholeness we feel as a physically non-disabled person. Being physically non-disabled is the most valuable identity in our society. Think of a time when you’ve seen an executive lead a meeting from a wheelchair. Or a politician hit the campaign trail with forearm crutches. Or the last time you saw an amputee who was also a Hollywood star. The notion of deeming physically non-disabled people as “normal” is so ingrained in our psyche that most of us can’t recognize being physically non-disabled for what it is—a privilege. There are hidden disabilities like autism, bipolar disorder, ADHD, depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome, and obsessive-compulsive disorder that go unnoticed by colleagues and HR due to an unfamiliarity with how these traits are expressed. Hidden disabilities can also get lost in the stereotypes of being black or jewish or trans, thus strengthening them. When organizations fail to emphasize neurodiversity, they inadvertently foster cultures of exclusion where a fear of disclosure forces individuals to create coping mechanisms to hide in plain sight. I may not know what it’s like to have a hidden disability, but I do know what shame and alienation feels like as an outsider. We may not have the same life experiences, but the ties that bind us to one another can pave the way to profound connections.
Todd Johnston | Dyslexic
“Living with dyslexia makes navigating every aspect of life more challenging—from the education system to reading the menu at a coffee shop. Dyslexia is like a strainer that works both ways. Imagine every time you read something, only part of the information gets through to you. And then when you write, only part of the information gets out. When people find out you have dyslexia, they start looking at you through a strainer too, only seeing parts of you.” (Photo: Jessica Venturi)
Joseph Forrester | Physically Disabled
“What usually makes things difficult is the perception of people with disabilities. Some people automatically assume you have a mental deficiency. Therefore, in the employment world, we aren't seen as assets to some companies/corporations.”
GENDER BIAS
Gender has long been understood as a binary function of sex: male or female. If you’re born with male reproductive organs, you’re a man, and if you’re born with female reproductive organs, you’re a woman. Conditioning taught me that the contours of a strong jawline or a naturally cinched waist was the signal I needed to ascertain gender, but gender, like every other expression of identity, isn’t that simple. Gender is less about how you look on the outside and more about how you feel on the inside. It’s an individual's internal sense of being a man, a woman, a mixture of the two, or neither. This more inclusive view opens the door to a wider range of gender identities and expressions.
Gender is the second most valuable identity in our society, and in the well-established hierarchy of gender preference, cisgender men, men whose gender expression matches their sex at birth, sit at the top. Cisgender men are the first to be seen, the first to speak, and the first to be heard.They benefit from having an almost universal sense of safety and security. They’re more likely to be hired when competing against any other gender, they get paid more, and they see themselves represented in every president that ever lived. It’s this hierarchy of privilege and stigma that creates the framework for bias. In fact, The CLU Studio created Bias Hurts to show what the underlying behavior animating bias actually looks like. Gender norms create space for the experiences of cisgender women to be heard, but they leave little room, even at the margins, for the plight of transgender men and transgender women. While many organizations have committed to creating inclusive work environments, some have been slow to adopt gender-inclusive policies like gender-neutral bathrooms and gender-transition planning.
Sam Otten | Transgender Man
“I didn’t come out until I was 41. For most of my career, I was a cisgender female that identified as a lesbian. Now I’m a transgender man who identifies as queer. When I identified as a lesbian, you could tell I was gay by just looking at me, but now as a transgender man, sometimes it feels like I’m in hiding because my gender identity isn’t so obvious. I want to tell people, but I don’t always know if their opinion of me is going to change.”
Mary Rinaldi | Cisgender Woman
“Our societal systems are designed for cis white men, so those same systems are a gauntlet for anyone else. In my case, I’ve had opportunities to accept professional roles that would have advanced my career, but these roles always came at the expense of others, either because many, though qualified, were overlooked for these positions or because these roles required gate-keeping, ignoring bad behavior, or harming people's careers for petty, competitive, or fear-driven reasons. I've just chosen not to take part in those kinds of unethical practices, so I've never gotten that far in corporate America. I am proud of that choice. It has forced me to get more experimental and creative with my resources, focus and grow my own talents, and embrace a work life that is more risky yet more free.” (Photo: Ash Prashar)
Erica Young | Cisgender Woman
“I have a bubbly personality, and people often write me off as incapable or unintelligent. I think being a woman accelerates that perception. I don't want that perception to stop me from attaining my career goals, so I have to work extra hard to overcome it.” (Photo:
Jared Wolfe Photography)
RACE BIAS
Race, the classification of individuals by their skin color, is a social construct that was created for the sole purpose of discrimination. The concept of race is so embedded in our consciousness that it feels like a feature of humanity, but race is a relatively new device, and it’s only valuable in a society that chooses to give it meaning. The expression of race in everyday life can be as straightforward as an Asian child inheriting his racial identity from Asian parents. There’s little conflict between how he identifies and how he’s seen. But racial identity can become very complicated. Consider a mixed-race girl of black and white parents—visually they present as white, but culturally they identify as black. They’ll struggle to navigate a society that won’t fully recognize them as either; instead they’re other’d—not black enough for black spaces and not white enough for white spaces. Colorism, or intra-race bias based on skin tone, is another example of how complicated racial identity can be. A boy can be stigmatized in society for being black, yet he can be privileged within the black community for being light skinned.
Race, as a part of us we can’t easily conceal, is the third most valuable identity in society. We begin receiving messages about the value of race at a very young age. By age five, most children are entering kindergarten and, without being able to articulate it, know implicitly that being white is better than being anything else. Day after day, year after year, they drink in suggestive messaging from commercials, cartoons, children's books, teachers, and songs about the significance of whiteness. Being white paves the way to nearly limitless access to resources and opportunities in every corner of society, a fact one does not have to wake up to in order to reap its benefits. Racism blankets our society—from the lack of black representation in film and TV to AI to the criminal justice system—and institutions have put their biases ahead of their interests despite research linking diversity to financial outperformance.
Brian Norris | Black Man
“Navigating race in corporate America as a person of color often means being the ‘first,’ the ‘only,’ and more often than not, the representative of your ethnicity. It often means having to be exceptional just to be equal. We need to acknowledge that seeing color is not a bad thing. In my personal experience, everyone sees color. My blackness precedes me when I walk into a room, and that is 100% okay. It’s part of who I am. But it does not define what I am capable of, and oftentimes the way I represent myself comes secondary in first impressions. My hope as we move forward as a society is that we enter a space where being extraordinary allows you to be seen and not just blend in.”
Kisha Brown | Black Woman
“There is a distinct universal experience that exists for black people in the legal system. Since the inception of this country, the door was made wide for black people to enter a criminal justice system and narrow to exit. The foundational institutions that dictate who should be behind bars, forced to labor for free, and subject to poor living conditions are still disproportionately impacting the black community. The direness of our legal prospects are so pervasive and seemingly impenetrable. We often take in those opportunities to celebrate our 'wins' in the legal system, yet we remain vigilant in our quest for justice.” (Photo: Eye Imagery)
Damion Parham | Black Man
“Everyone puts me in a box. In their experience with sickle cell, it’s a handicap. Before COVID, I travelled a lot for work and was once hospitalized for two weeks in a town with little diversity. They were surprised to see someone like me—well dressed, coming from work with a full health record on a flash drive around my neck. But when I was admitted, I was stereotyped right away. They thought I wanted to be there for the pain medication—for the morphine and the oxycontin. It was upsetting.”
LANGUAGE BIAS
As an aspect of identity that can remain hidden until we choose to open our mouths to speak, language is the fourth most valuable aspect of identity. On the surface, language appears to be nothing more than a collection of symbols strung together to communicate meaning, but as an expression of identity, language is deeply connected to one’s culture. Language is the conduit through which we affirm and honor our cultural traditions. It’s part of the reason why speaking in one’s native tongue in a country where English is the primary language is so important to immigrants and refugees.
Being universally understood in a country where multiple languages are spoken is an often overlooked privilege. And there’s no greater signifier of language privilege than the ability to speak and understand English. English speakers are afforded easy access to medical, educational, political, and employment information, and it is a global currency that can be traded in exchange for good will, notoriety, and respect. There’s also a geographic pecking order that shapes bias within the English language. There’s a hierarchy for individuals from other countries who speak English with a foreign South American, Canadian, Middle Eastern, African, Russian, Australian, or Asian accent—a bias typically influenced by race and religion. There’s another hierarchy for Americans who speak English with a regional New England, Southern, Western, Midwest, or New York accent—a bias heavily influenced by class and education. These hierarchies play out in the workplace in interesting ways and can affect who gets chosen for special projects, promoted, or paired with a mentor. For example, individuals with British accents benefit from being perceived as more intelligent and dignified, while individuals with Southern accents carry the stigma of being slow mental processors.
Gianni Gustave | French Speaker
“I had a hard time acclimating to American culture. I went to an all-white high school where I felt rejected because they saw me as an ‘other.’ It wasn’t until I went to college and found community with other immigrants that I started speaking up and having conversations in English. For the first three years I was in this country, I hardly spoke because people saw me as the kid who wasn’t American and who couldn’t express himself. But I speak three languages—English, Creole, and French.” (Photo: Harvey Jackson)
AGE BIAS
The freedom to choose how we express our identity changes dramatically over time, and like a bell curve, choice increases from childhood through adulthood but then decreases sharply with old age. Jurisdiction over identity, our own and others, is not unique to American culture. Admittedly, I push my son to be autonomous and self-governing with one hand while keeping a firm grip on his gender identity, sexual orientation, and religious expression with the other. He isn’t an adolescent yet, but with the physical, emotional, and social changes it ushers in, he may discover that who he is conflicts with who I want him to be, and for the first time ever, he’ll have the power to choose.
Age is the fifth most valuable identity in a society that idolizes young adults as the standard for beauty and innovation, while the elderly are mostly written off as insignificant. Age is often used as a guide to grant or withhold access to various parts of society like employment and healthcare. Through laws, society dictates when an individual can legally strike out on their own, resulting in a liberating sense of independence: when they can participate in the political process and influence the direction of the country, when they can consume alcohol, and when they can own assets and participate in wealth creation. Ageism, the stereotyping of individuals based on their age, occurs at both ends of the spectrum. It targets young adults who are just beginning in their careers and late-career-stage adults who are coming to the end of theirs. Early-career young adults jockey to be recognized in environments where experience is the leading indicator of value, while paradoxically, late-career-stage adults are penalized for having too much experience.
Mary Carney | Retired
“There are a lot of people who are what they do. And when they stop doing, they don’t know who they are anymore; they no longer have an identity. As you get older, you tend to get pushed aside. Before I retired, there was a lot of pressure to be youthful looking and to dye my hair. I definitely felt that by letting my hair go grey, there was a certain prejudice about that. I was perceived as less capable, less knowledgeable instead of being perceived as someone with more experience.”
Sariah Grant | Young Adult
“It’s hard to build a career when you’re fresh out of college and your industry is looking for managers and above. I’m young, but that doesn’t mean I’m not creative and can’t help a company grow. We prepared for our industries in college, but sometimes we’re overlooked for not having enough experience. And it’s not just at work—at home adults think that you don’t know any better and can’t think for yourself, or just because you’re young, you’re not entitled to feel a certain way. That’s not fair.”
CLASS BIAS
Class is the socioeconomic mantle we inherit from our parents that, for better or worse, makes it easy for us to run in the well-worn grooves of their fortune. Economic class (wealth, power, and influence) and social class (cultural relevance and interests) work in tandem and often mirror each other in ways that are familiar to us. It’s why, for example, golf, a game where just two to four people compete on a playing field twice the size of Disneyland Park, is the pastime of choice for the upper class and not baseball, where 50,000 people sit shoulder to shoulder in a stadium the size of a Walmart parking lot. Both are games, but only one reinforces the notion of wealth. Together, economic and social class shape our daily lives—where we live and go to school, how we talk and dress, who our friends are, who we marry, and what we do for a living. But class is as impermanent as it is important. We can move up and down the economic class ladder independently of our social class and vice versa. It’s this class mobility that allows us to lay new tracks to run on, and in time, create grooves that our children would be proud to step into.
Class is the sixth most valuable identity, but it’s less an expression of identity and more a marker of one’s perceived value in society. As a marker, it creates powerful incentives for individuals to ascend its semi-strict hierarchy of lower, middle, and upper. The implications of class are best understood through the lens of employment. White-collar workers benefit most from the socioeconomic spoils of belonging to the upper class. They have more free time to pursue their interests, they earn more, they tend to work with their minds, and their access to a quality education is not dependent on finances. Blue-collar workers occupy the middle class and generally are only recognized when supporting society during a crisis. They earn less and tend to work more with their hands. The underemployed, individuals who have jobs but don’t earn a livable wage, occupy the lower class. They often have multiple part-time jobs, are less likely to receive job-based healthcare, and don’t have the respect of society.
Elaine Schreibman | Working Class Woman
“I grew up middle class but became part of the upper class as my husband and I became successful. We travelled and lived lavishly. But when things began to take a turn after he lost his job and we started having less and less discretionary money, we were quietly booted from that social class. We lost everything. I was embarrassed and struggled with shame even though we didn’t do anything wrong. I went from upper class to a working-class breadwinner. I still have a few friends with whom I know money and social class have nothing to do with our friendship, but we live in different worlds. By virtue of the fact that I work weekends, I need to plan two weeks in advance so I can take off from work. They have the luxury of not having to work on the weekends. It’s just a different world.”
EDUCATION BIAS
Our educational background can easily be shielded from society, and it is the seventh most valuable identity. The US educational system is a sprawling complex of private, public, and home schools all competing for the affection of society by graduating the very best into its ranks. We enter this complex as children, running an annual gauntlet of academic evaluation, until we finally arrive as young adults to academia’s final destination—university. But not all students start at the same place and under the same conditions. For many, the journey to university is beset with class-related obstacles. For example, public schools get their funding from local property taxes, which means students who attend schools in poor neighborhoods don’t have access to the same resources—experienced teachers, libraries, WiFi, art and music programs, tutors, and individualized learning plans—as students at better-funded schools in affluent neighborhoods. In addition, students who work part-time through all four years of high school due to financial responsibilities at home simply don’t have the privilege of time—time to study, time to be mentored, or time to think about college. For those who do make it despite their circumstances, an undergraduate degree is often the only way to elevate their socioeconomic status. But not all degrees are created equal.
Society smiles at the undergraduate degree from a public university but reserves its warmest affection and fealty for graduates with degrees from Ivy League institutions, a microscopic group making up just .02% of the US population. To put that in perspective, there are more Uber and Lyft drivers in New York City than there are Ivy League alumni in the US. Their specialness is based on our tendency to form a favorable view of someone from just one remarkable trait. Ivy Leaguers emerge from exclusive academic cultures, enter the workforce, and then ironically are tasked with creating inclusive ones. They are thought of as being more intelligent, altruistic, and morally upright than other members of society.
Paul Ramseur | Elite Institution
“I was raised by educators—two public school teachers who worked their butts off to send me to an elite private school. I never wrestled with my identity as the only black kid in my high school because I lived in an all-black neighborhood and grew up in a house full of HBCU history. I always walked in both worlds. I’m the ultimate code switcher. I look like a football player and talk like a banker. After high school, I went to an HBCU because it was all that I knew. Graduating from Howard University was the best thing that has ever happened to me. I had to compete in the most pure, empirical way. There was no 'you have to be twice as good to be average.' No, you had to be twice as good to keep up with your peers that look like you.”
Steffon Isaac | College Dropout
“As a black college dropout of a city university, most employers tended to see me as a pair of hands instead of a mind. Once I was hired in a role, no one really saw me as being capable of doing more than what I was hired for, and so I was rarely promoted. Much too often, education is mistaken for intelligence. In my case, I dropped out of college to start an internet company. There are beautiful minds tucked away in every corner of society just waiting for a shot.”
NATIONALITY BIAS
Nationality, the legal designation of belonging to a country as a citizen, is typically conferred through birth and carries with it deep cultural, religious, and social meaning. Despite the significance associated with being a native-born citizen, forty million people living in the US today were born in another country. Forty million people, including my mother, surrendered citizenship from their own countries in exchange for a better, more equitable life in the US under a different designation—immigrant. If the promise of American nationality is told by forty million immigrants, its peril can be read by the three million individuals classified as refugees, who without choice were forced to abandon their home countries in light of religious persecution, geopolitical conflict, sexual orientation, or their gender expression. Immigrants and refugees couldn’t be more different given the circumstances that brought them to the US, but both, however, are bound by the universally understood notion of home. Home begins as a place, but for refugees and immigrants like me, home morphs into something completely different—a feeling that takes residency in the heart. But for large swaths of immigrants and refugees, America is still a place, a location on a map, and won’t become a home until they feel a sense of community, acceptance, and belonging.
Nationality is the eighth most valuable identity. Society expresses its preference for citizens through legislation by dictating who can run for political office, who can vote, and who can drive a car, while undocumented immigrants and refugees are stigmatized, eking out a living at the margins of society. Undocumented immigrants and refugees can’t travel freely within US borders and live in constant fear of being deported. And without a social security number or driver’s license, most jobs and some medical help are inaccessible to them.
Terence Kennedy | Immigrant
“Where I am from, there is a nationalized healthcare system, which ensures a level of care and is unlikely to make you bankrupt. Moving to the US, I had no understanding that not only was healthcare completely tied to employment, but the level of access and quality of that healthcare was a big part of the decision for many of my colleagues and friends. Navigating insurance networks, eligibility, and (at the time) pre-existing conditions, deductibles, co-pays and specialists, HSAs, and prescriptions was a nightmare of forms and literature. Providing medical histories, including immunizations and past prescriptions, [and] being met with skepticism was frustrating and confusing. Assumptions that all these things are common knowledge rose anxiety around choosing the wrong option during an open enrollment and potentially paying for it later.” (Photo: Nadine Dillon)
Shakera Smith | Immigrant
“Being American is heavy for me. Even though I was born in America, I identify as an immigrant. But Americans don’t view me as American because I have an accent. I’m the third child of immigrant parents but the first child actually born in America. In my industry, I’m made to feel that people think being born in America means they should be the first in line to be chosen and that immigrants shouldn’t come to this country and be able to maintain the same lifestyle they maintain. I’ve had enough experiences to put a stamp on that feeling.”
SEXUAL ORIENTATION BIAS
Sexual orientation describes the gender one is emotionally, sexually, and physically attracted to. Most parents and caregivers assume their child will grow up to be attracted to the opposite sex and raise them as heterosexual. Society endorses this preference for heterosexuality through cultural touchstones and suggestive messaging in the media. For example, in children’s literature, the princess—a woman—is always saved by her prince—a man. True love’s kiss is always between a man and a woman. But sexual orientation isn’t something that can be instilled; instead, we wake up to it, becoming conscious of a set of feelings that have always been there. Much of our childhood is spent receiving implicit signals about what our sexuality should be. But as we go through adolescence, we discover that who we should be and who we actually are can be different things.
Sexual orientation is easily concealed from the outside world and is the ninth most valuable identity in society. Sexual orientation isn’t just about sexuality; there are also social implications. Society uses sexual orientation to determine who can be perceived as normal and who’s perceived as a deviant. It says who can be safe and who is to be seen as dangerous. We also see society's preference for heterosexuals through the model of a perfect family—a two-parent household with at least one natural born child, which supposes the parents are a cisgender man and a cisgender woman. Sexual orientation and gender are separate identities that stand on their own, but when taken together, it shifts an individual into sharper focus. When we learn that an individual, who we don’t know, is either queer, lesbian, bisexual, or gay, it’s assumed the person is either a cisgender woman or a cisgender man. By seeing sexual orientation alongside gender, we make room for the LGBTQ+ community, especially in the workplace.
Sonya Shields | Queer Woman
“Some people don't see LGBTQ advocacy as necessary, and that's often people who are heterosexual and married. But sexuality is part of my identity. After being out for so many years, I still come across people who think that being bisexual is a choice. Why would anyone choose to potentially lose family members, lose friends, and be discriminated against? I can't turn it off like a light switch. It just is.” (Photo: Paul Frangipane)
J’Nai Pinkard | Queer Woman
“The intersection of my racial, sexual orientation, and gender identity plays a huge part in the way that I navigate the healthcare system. I’ve experienced more than one doctor appear dismissive when I was having concerns about whatever symptoms I may have had at the time. The rushed visits and curt responses made me feel like perhaps I was being dramatic. I’ve always tried to avoid reacting negatively or responding out of frustration towards medical staff to avoid being categorized as the “angry black woman.” It feels like when it comes to mistreatment or any kind of discrimination, as a black woman, I have to have superhuman resiliency and resolve regardless of how others offend or abuse in their positions or interaction.”
RELIGIOUS BIAS
Religion is the tenth most valuable identity in society. Religion is a belief system that many are exposed to, and subsequently embrace, as children growing up in the homes of our parents or caregivers. But for many of us, religion doesn’t become a defining aspect of our identity until we rediscover it on our own and find meaning in it through community with others. Inclusion is an important part of religion—feeling as though you’re part of something and being seen as both a member of a community and as an individual, which is no different than the way we all want to be seen in society. But inclusion doesn’t mean tolerance. We can welcome individuals into our homes with open arms and still be intolerant of certain aspects of their identity.
In the US, Christianity is considered to be the right faith and has long been held as a litmus test for virtue. Christians are showered with positive references of their faith in the media, while other faiths are vilified, parodied, or portrayed in a way that suggests its value is in the similarities it shares with Christianity. One of the ways organizations signal their religious preference is through Paid Time Off (PTO) policies that support the observance of Christian holidays over the holidays of other faiths. For example, Christmas is a paid holiday for workers in the US, while the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah and Islam’s Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha are not. It’s unfair for Jews and Muslims to have to use their accrued PTO or vacation time in order to celebrate their most significant holidays. Christians also benefit from the privilege of not having to disclose their faith publicly. Some faiths have religious dressing that can’t be hidden from society—yarmulkes worn by Jewish men and boys, hijabs worn by Muslim women, and turbans worn by Sikh men, which are sacred attire designed to affirm one’s faith—and they can tragically become a target for bias.
Yusef Ramelize | Muslim
“I know people see the name 'Yusef Ramelize' and make assumptions about what I think, my capabilities, and my personality. I can't run away from my name. People judge me before they even see me. Then when they meet me, as a Black Muslim, there are a whole lot of other stereotypes that show up. I see myself as a dynamic person, a father, a man of faith, a husband, a brother, and a business owner.”
If you now have a better idea of how identity and unconscious bias shape your view of the world and the people with whom you interact every day, the good news is, we can each break out of these old patterns and do something about it. I assume you’re here because, like me, you believe we can all do better in terms of how we treat one another. Where do you start? As I’ve said, the way to begin disrupting unconscious bias is to practice radical empathy, which means to not only listen and learn about others’ experiences but also to work to change systems as we change ourselves. Consider using the Unconscious Bias and How to Disrupt It Discussion Guide in your organization as a tactical next step.
CONTRIBUTOR
Steffon Isaac
Founder, The CLU Studio