Implicit bias is the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. The implicit associations we harbor in our subconscious cause us to have feelings and attitudes about other people based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, age, and appearance. Implicit bias refers to the suppressed thoughts people conceal in order to “keep the peace”. Many people refer to Implicit bias as unconscious racism. Often, people’s implicit biases aren’t based on personal experiences or beliefs, but rather reflect societal messages, such as the images of blacks or ther minorities seen in the media.
In my study I wanted to figure out how common implicit bias was experienced by people of color. I interviewed individuals that attend University at Buffalo who have encountered instances that they felt were discriminatory and decided if implicit bias played a role. Implicit bias is also understood as a mental process that stimulates negative attitudes about people who are not members of one’s own “in-group” . White Americans including many who hold consciously progressive values and attitudes harbor negative associations toward people of color.
Many researchers believe that implicit racial bias is a response to direct and indirect negative information that an individual receives starting in childhood. Personally I have encountered many caucasian people who have little to no interaction with African Americans. It is very clear that these people have only seen black people as distorted images on television or news. One day I was at the cash register paying for food at the supermarket, and the cashier stares at me and then says “you are so beautiful ,and your hair is gorgeous.. What are you? ” . I reply saying “thank you . I am black”.
She then says “You are welcome … hunny I mean what are you mixed with”. I reply and say “Nothing , I am just black”. The look she gave me was pure confusion as though I was lying and she could not fathom why. She then replies saying “You don’t look black. hunny that’s not black hair black’s don’t have good hair” and laughs. I took immediate offense to this comment ,but did not reply. I immediately thought this White adult clearly has not had much interaction with African american people and is getting her ideas from a deformed close minded picture of what she believes a black women to look like.
Many researchers and scholars believe that implicit bias leads to unconscious negative attitudes about African americans. After recalling this negative experience I decided to interview individuals to detect if they to have been through an incident that implicit bias played a role in. The first individual I interviewed mentioned the trouble she has when she emails potential employers with her birth name. When she initially told me about this problem I could not fathom how a name could cause issues. She told me that she had been experiencing this issue since she was in college.
She would send emails to faculty members at her university asking to talk about research opportunities and would never receive a response. Her mother told her she should try “using another name”“. She immediately started sending emails to the same faculty members ,but this time using a stereotypical white name and immediately received emails back. She told me she recieved one email back within 6 minutes. Her name is Asha a common name in the nigerian culture that she said means “lively woman”. Studies show that Asha is not the only one who has encountered this problem.
CNN wrote an article in may of last year explaining four common ways people may display hidden bias , and this example was one of them. Students with stereotypically “black”-sounding names tend to be labeled as troublemakers by teachers. Job applicants with such names are less likely than their white-sounding counterparts to get called in for interviews. Thus showing that unconscious biases penetrate various realms of society from hiring decisions to medical care. The second person I interviewed was my classmate Kayla she is an undergraduate student who recently received a car for her 19th birthday.
She told me how happy she was to finally get a car after many months of trying to find a dealer willing to offer a reasonable price. I asked her if she had any experience with feeling discriminated against due to a stereotype placed on her race. She immediately began to tell me why it was so hard for her to find a car at a decent price , and why she felt discriminated against. Before she left for school her father promised her a car. She told me she went to three dealers with her father , she watched her father bargain for a used car on her behalf ,but the prices he was offered were ridiculously high.
She told me she asked her father “why are they making it so difficult? ” her father said “they always do this”. The “they” he was referring to were the caucasian car dealers they were dealing with. Her father worked at a predominantly white law firm ,in chicago illinois. She told me that one day he had one of his co- workers go bargain for the car she wanted and explained to me he was offered a price “600 dollars less” than her father. When she told me this I was immediately astounded ,by the thought that people could be so deceitful.
After this interview in articular I was shocked ,and decided to call my mom and tell her what I heard ,but my mother did not seem as surprised as I was. My mother told me that the same thing happened to her and my father when they tried to get my car. I never realized this was such a common thread throughout the African American community so I looked on the internet to find stories similar to mine and Kayla’s. I instantly came across an article by New york times that stated ,studies show when whites and blacks were sent to bargain for a used car blacks were offered initial prices roughly $700 higher, and they received far smaller oncessions.
Through my research I found that humans beings are implicitly biased. Despite that fact it does not mean that those biases are not learned. Implicit bias is considered relatively unconscious although it may not seem as such. Studies in the New york times state that by the age of six we have started making unconscious associations with certain racial groups based on fear or other negative effects. Based on my studies African americans are on of the predominant racial groups that are affected by implicit bias. Although I learned Implicit bias and racism are not nterchangeable , implicit bias is part of the foundation of racism.
If I was to research this topic further I would try to find out the main source of people’s bias ,and where exactly they come up with these concepts. Implicit bias can influence many of the most important decisions we make in our personal, professional , and social lives as seen through the experiences of myself and my interviewees. Who we are friends with , whom we sell products to , and even who we vote for are all influenced by racial attitudes. Implicit bias distorts these attitudes and decreases the possibility of living a fully “engaged life”“.
