Chapter Two
Start with you

So we warned you in the introduction that you should examine your own bias before extending your counsel to others. The best way to teach is to model change. How can we insist that others do the hard work of holding themselves accountable for their biased attitudes and behavior if we have not truly taken the time to closely examine and overcome our own bias? We are going to teach the teacher. Then you can go out and teach the world. We promise, it won’t hurt.

So, the process of overcoming your bias starts with you. By overcoming, we mean to control, conquer, and prevail over your bias. With self-awareness, attention, and effort, you can become aware of the way in which bias operates in your life. Then, you can make deliberate choices to minimize the impact your brain’s automatic preferences have on how you treat people. Will your brain ever stop having automatic preferences? No. Bias is a hardwired survival mechanism. Can you ever completely rewire your brain to overwrite its current biases? Maybe—the jury is still out.

But what we do know is that you don’t have to let your unconscious biases go unchallenged. You can overcome the impact they have on your life.

You are the solution. You are not the cause of the problem. (Feel free to blame society, history, your brain’s wiring, and a misguided humanity for creating this mess.) Fortunately, we have more knowledge about the science of the human brain now, and we have the tools to change our thoughts and behaviors. So, get ready to take a long, hard look at yourself.

It begins with breaking the bias cycle. In our work as diversity practitioners and organizational development specialists, we frequently encounter both leaders and individual contributors who wholeheartedly believe that if we could just fix someone else, someone who is not me, everything would improve. As human beings, we are often quick to assign blame and situate problems within everyone but ourselves. Hopefully by now you have already taken the Implicit Association Test (see Activity #2) and identified a few of your own biases. If not, don’t worry—you still have time. Go ahead, we will wait.

Most people who take the IAT are shocked at the results, but they shouldn’t be. We all have bias. We really cannot emphasize that enough. That said, you must realize that it is critically important to acknowledge that you, too, have bias. No one is served by blaming others without self-reflection and awareness of our own issues. We cannot tell you how many times our clients have said, “If only [insert person or group of people] would change, everything would be fine.” If we cannot see how we are each a part of the ubiquitous they, then we have no hope of change. No one is off the hook when it comes to bias. We all have it and it shows up at some point. We don’t have to be victims of our unconscious bias. Most of us don’t want to be biased, so we need to learn to control the bias so that our rational, compassionate selves can make better decisions.

Unconscious bias shows up in many forms:

Crossing the street to avoid certain kinds of people

Dismissing a qualified job candidate with a foreign accent

Asking a person of Asian descent where they’re really from

Clutching your purse when passing by a black man

Recommending a man for a promotion from a pool that includes equally qualified women employees

How do you notice your own bias? Start paying attention to how you treat people. Ask yourself, without judgment, if you would make the same choice if the person in front of you were different. Use your imagination: Replace the job candidate with your mother (assuming she had the same résumé as the candidate!). Would you ask the same questions? Would you feel more or less at ease? Replace the pedestrian you pass on the street with your brother. If your brother were wearing the same outfit, would you have crossed the street? Don’t neglect personal safety, but do start questioning why your brain believes that one person is trustworthy while another is not. It isn’t a comfortable exercise, but it is key to reprogramming your brain.

Honestly, the hardest part of this task is the acknowledgment that you even have bias. Many of us pride ourselves on being ethical, fair, kind, and respectful to all people. However, the results from the thousands of people who have taken the IAT tell a different story. The researchers at Project Implicit have created a test that is widely acknowledged to be an accurate measure of your brain’s automatic preference for one of two different choices in a social group, for example: weight (fat or thin), race (black or white), age (young or old), and so forth. You are instructed to tap a key on your computer’s keyboard with your left hand (the letter e) and a different key with your right hand (the letter i). Then, you go through several rounds of an exercise where a social group (e.g., blacks and whites; fat and thin people) is assigned a key, and an evaluative word (e.g., good or bad) is also assigned a key. So, for example, in one round, you are told to hit e when you see a picture of a black person and i when you see a picture of a white person. When you see a word that is good (e.g., happy) you hit the e key, and when you see a word that is bad (e.g., grief) you hit the i key. Then you are asked to select which image you associate with each word.

According to the project’s website, “The Implicit Association Test measures the strength of associations between concepts (e.g., black people, gay people) and evaluations (e.g., good, bad) or stereotypes (e.g., athletic, clumsy). The main idea is that making a response is easier when closely related items share the same response key. We would say that one has an implicit preference for straight people relative to gay people if they are faster to categorize words when Gay People and Bad share a response relative to when Gay People and Good share a response key.”

Based on feedback from the millions of people who have taken the IAT, on the black and white test, the vast majority of folks show an automatic preference for white people.

Very few people showed an automatic preference for black people. Again, according to the Project Implicit website, “Results from this website consistently show that members of stigmatized groups (black people, gay people, older people) tend to have more positive implicit attitudes toward their groups than do people who are not in the group, but that there is still a moderate preference for the more socially valued group. So gay people tend to show an implicit preference for straight people relative to gay people, but it is not as strong as the implicit preference shown by straight people. We think that this is because stigmatized group members develop negative associations about their group from their cultural environments, but also have some positive associations because of their own group membership and that of close others.”

For those of you doing the math, the remaining numbers to get to 100 percent were the 17 percent of people who showed no preference for either group.

Believing you have no bias is worse than knowing you do.

Once we can acknowledge our bias, whether through taking formal tests or simply being brutally honest with ourselves, then and only then can we begin to change it. Telling yourself that you have no bias—that you are one of the good guys who believes in equality—is the best guarantee that you will continue letting your unconscious bias control how you treat people.

Another way your bias may show up is through what we call hot buttons, or triggers. Have you ever had your buttons pushed and reacted without thinking? Where your emotional response gets out in front of a rational one? Where you’ve thought, usually later, “Wow, I wish I hadn’t responded like that”? Your family is often the best at knowing and pushing these buttons. In our experience, siblings may be the most effective at setting you off!

Topics that consistently make you angry may be hot-button triggers.

As an example, Tiffany has come to learn that she is sensitive about the immigration conversation in the United States because people often name Mexicans as part of the problem. In this case, the bias is a positive one toward Mexicans or people of Mexican ancestry, but the emotional reaction Tiffany has when confronted with people who act dismissively toward this group helps her see a positive bias toward Mexicans and a negative one toward those who would restrict immigration. This is important information that can provide clues for where biases might impact our ability to fairly treat people—in either unjustified positive or negative ways. She says:

After a substantial amount of reflection about why I respond emotionally to negative opinions about Mexicans, I learned that the immigration conversation requires my full attention. I may not be able to control my defensive emotions, but I have learned to moderate my behavior.

One of the things I do differently is tell people about my connection to Mexico and why it is important to me. This provides the listener access to part of my story and, by extension, my humanity. This way if we disagree later, we are already one step closer to being authentic with each other. I make the connection as soon as I see that the discussion is headed into my bias zone. This act of preempting the topic of Mexico before it goes off course serves as a bit of a disclaimer in case my attempts to control my emotional response fail. At least the listener will know from whence my emotions came.

Sometimes the disclaimer, or the personalization of the issue, causes people to rethink their perspective. If they know early on that a certain angle will upset you, they may tone it down. Unfortunately, some people lack a high degree of empathy and will either fail to notice your concern or will carry on and provoke you quite deliberately.

Hot-button triggers are often linked to unconscious bias.

So, when you notice yourself getting seriously ticked off, or even mildly agitated, pay close attention to the topic. If you start to see a pattern, you may have a bias issue. This also works with friends and family. If you find yourself the victim of harsh words or on the receiving end of a crappy attitude about the same thing with the same person, over and over again, they might have a bias issue. And remember, if the topic is choice of pizza shops, it may not be worth engaging. But if the topic is a certain group of people, or religion, or some equally sensitive issue, be a friend and practice some of the talking points we have presented so far.

TIP: Try this sentence stem if someone says something biased and you want to help him or her see that bias: “You may not be aware of this, but I am uncomfortable with the way you are talking about that group of people.”

This statement lets your friend off the hook in two ways. First, the underlined portion implies that if she knew better, she would do better. The rest of the sentence focuses on your feelings, as opposed to a direct accusation of her bias. Using “I” statements (in this case, “I am uncomfortable”) to help people understand how their behavior is affecting the people around them is a time-tested conflict-resolution tool.

Now here is one of the places where our human tendencies get us into real trouble. Peer pressure is real, and it does not stop just because we are adults. We know it’s painful to admit, but how many times have you been in a room with someone who said something racist, sexist, or just plain mean—and you went along with it without speaking up? Depending on the relationship, the power dynamic, the level of respect, or, more selfishly, what we want or need from that person, we unfortunately encourage such bad behavior through our silence. We encourage biased behavior when we say nothing in the face of a hateful comment. We encourage biased behavior when we laugh at a sexist or racist joke. We encourage biased behavior when we either vocally or tacitly egg people on by not holding them accountable to a higher standard. And if someone calls you out, try to remember how hard it is to support someone’s de-biasing journey and don’t take it personally. It is the behavior they are criticizing, not you.

Speaking of taking things personally, try this activity.