The Biases Within You

Reflection 3: Implicit Associations

By: Makaila Gaston

Implicit bias is defined by the National Institute of Health as “a form of bias that occurs automatically and unintentionally, that nevertheless affects judgments, decisions, and behaviors.” Everyday, people make ignorant assumptions about others based on just that: ignorance.

A lack of understanding paired with a lack of willingness to learn can be dangerous. Living in a world where implicit biases exist, it's inevitable that I’d be hurt sooner or later by someone's actions related to biases. However, when you begin to see it for exactly what it is, you don’t let it bother you anymore.

In regards to my comfortability about talking about implicit biases, it is much higher than my comfortability talking about white privilege. I think that I honestly am not very comfortable speaking about this because of the way that the speech would be portrayed. Typically, I’d be looked at as being an angry black woman. Or, maybe my implicit biases for certain groups of people would cause me to automatically and unintentionally assume that I’d be made to feel this way if I voiced my concerns.

Taking the Implicit Association Test made me wonder what implicit biases I have as a woman. For example, at some point I was asked to look at images of both African American men and women, and Caucasian men and women in business attire, casual clothing, etc.

I can admit that if I were walking down a street and saw any race man with a hood on as they had in the assessment, as a young woman it might make me afraid, think negatively or project biases on them.

I think that university and classroom settings can challenge this if people are open to learning. Because educational settings are times where you can come together with people you may not normally, you’re able to interact with people and ask questions which will help eradicate some of these biases and false assumptions one may have.

In addition, courses like these being offered by universities not only ensures that we’ll be ready for the diversity of the real world and the workplace, but also are helping shape the people we are right now.

I’ve recently watched “You People” on Netflix starring Lauren London, who plays an Muslim woman, and Jonah Hill, who plays a Jewish man. Without giving too much away, these two characters fall in love but end up breaking up due to their families not being able to get over their biases. Specifically Hill’s character’s mom constantly throws out microaggressions and eventually Lauren London’s character is sick of it. This related me to implicit biases. Hill’s mom didn’t have any intentional harm but her ignorance of never knowing a black person intimately caused her to be inappropriate.

I guess the ultimate question is, does it make someone wrong if they simply don’t know?

Or, is it only considered ill behavior once they know what they are doing or know they are ignorant and are choosing to remain that way?