Connor Campbell, Period 2, 12/11/20, Day A

Connor Campbell

Modern Mythology

Ms. Fusaro

12/11/2020

    Allow me to introduce my blog with a simple two-word term I believe many of you have heard before: implicit bias. Some of you may know what implicit bias is, some of you may have heard the word used before, and some of you may have never heard the word before in your life. To put it simply, implicit bias is the subconscious force in your mind that drives your decisions, assumptions, and actions around specific people. The most important thing to note about implicit biases is that we all have them, no one is exempt from having subconscious, internal biases. Say you’re a recent Duke graduate at your first job interview, for example, and when you enter your prospective employer’s office, you notice Duke memorabilia scattered around; a mini football helmet, a blue devil plushie, a photo of JJ Redick or (more likely) Christian Laettner on his desk or wall. He reads your resume and notices you’ve graduated from Duke, smiles, and for the rest of the interview, you two are laughing and sharing stories about professors, classes, sports, everything about your college experiences. Congratulations, you’ve won the job by a longshot. You may not have been the most experienced or even the best candidate, but you had the best interview because you and your employer shared an alma mater. He was comfortable around you, he could relate to you, and he liked you the most because you were the most like him. That’s implicit bias.
    The most common topics associated with implicit bias, however, is race, gender, and sexual orientation. As I noted earlier, we all have implicit biases that you may be completely unaware of and it affects the way you act around different people. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re racist or you’re sexist, it just means that your decision making is impaired. As part of the NYC Department of Education’s Office of Equity and Access’s Welcoming School Climate Advisory Board, I’ve received and conducted countless implicit bias trainings to teachers, principals, and DOE administrators in all five boroughs. The goal of these trainings is to help people realize their implicit biases and combat them. We as people can never truly remove our implicit biases; but the more we are aware of them, the easier it is for us to keep those biases from affecting our decision making. 
    I highly suggest you try to motivate your office or school to partake in an implicit bias training. I’ve seen countless people dismiss the idea of experiencing a training because they think it’s a waste of time or they say they’re not racist, only to enjoy the training after its conclusion and say they learned a great deal about themselves. Junior year was the school year I believe I had the greatest personal growth and I attribute a great deal of that growth to the work I was able to do for the Welcoming School Climate Advisory Board. It doesn’t matter how old you are, everyone has room to grow, and taking an implicit bias training is the most enjoyable and most impactful way to stimulate that growth. I promise, from experience, that you won’t regret it.