Am I being guilty of unconscious bias?

[Normalguy22]

I see this a phase a lot in the media lately.

recently at my work we had a event for black history month. They basically said only black people can work in a certain public facing area on a set day. All white faces were excluded to another area.

They made a big fuss about it around diversity and celebrating black culture etc. Balloons, cake,flags etc etc

Now to me this seems to just reinforces stereotypes and division, surely it we shouldn’t highlight a group people by race, gender etc. I love working with all types of cultures and genders and believe we should all just stop talking about “differences” and get along.

Am I being guilty of unconscious bias or worse racism by seeing these events and racist and causing division?

Yes - until we have true equality and equity, then underrepresented and marginalised groups deserve recognition of the struggles they face.

I don't think you understand the meaning of "unconscious bias".

You're talking about what you want OP, not what black people want. As a white woman I can't speak for black people, but the ones I do know, think black history month is important. They recently celebrated it at my children's school and the black children spoke quite passionately about how it was an important time to celebrate black history and achievements. One girl said "It's the only time we feel like black people are important". Black people still feel they are judged on their colour every day. I don't think it's our place as white people to say that skin colour is irrelevant.

I agree.

And will there ever be true equality, with the horrendous historical not-so-distant past of widespread racism, slavery etc?

They basically said only black people can work in a certain public facing area on a set day. All white faces were excluded to another area.

Without context this sounds strange. Was there a particular event or workshop happening in that area that day?

We need to talk about differences and the challenges faced by people, not just ignore it all.

I'm wondering if excluding white people was part of the point of the day - to demonstrate how this feels?

But agree, this is not unconscious bias, and I don't think OP understands what the term means.

So they did an event to make white people feel othered, so maybe they'd have some empathy with black colleagues.

And you feel it was too divisive?

Yes, you are demonstrating 'unconscious bias'.

What did your black colleagues think of this initiative?

It does sound a bit of a strange thing to do.

@Normalguy22

Unconscious bias is when we make judgments or decisions on the basis of our prior experience, our own personal deep-seated thought patterns, assumptions or interpretations, and we are not aware that we are doing it.

So not what you are looking for in this context

(Definition by Royal Society)

That’s not what unconscious bias means. At all.

The event clearly wants to centre black people within your company. And it’s probably the only time that all visible faces of the company have ever been black, but I’m guessing it’s pretty common for all visible faces to be white. You weren’t excluded or separated or marginalised. They just didn’t put your white face out front and centre.

Go and at least educate yourself a little.

redskydarknight
I'm wondering if excluding white people was part of the point of the day - to demonstrate how this feels“

This. Good idea. Most able bodied white people have no idea how it feels to be subjected to discrimination.

Oh maybe I misunderstood, I thought that as I thought this was divisive that I wasn’t understanding the “other side” of the argument and hence was being unconsciously bias? So confusing all this stuff!

You are almost certainly guilty of unconscious bias (we all are), but this is not an example of it.

What is unconscious bias?
Unconscious (or implicit) bias is a term that describes the associations we hold, outside our conscious awareness and control. Unconscious bias affects everyone.
Unconscious bias is triggered by our brain automatically making quick judgments and assessments. They are influenced by our background, personal experiences, societal stereotypes and cultural context. It is not just about gender, ethnicity or other visible diversity characteristics - height, body weight, names, and many other things can also trigger unconscious bias.
Unconscious bias can have a significant influence on our attitudes and behaviours, especially towards other people. It can influence key decisions in the workplace and can contribute to inequality, for example in selection and recruitment, appraisals, or promotion.

(https://www.imperial.ac.uk/equality/resources/unconscious-bias/)

There's lot's of other things wrong with your post but I haven't got time to get into it. I thought the definition might help though.

Maybe most white men, not white people. I'm pretty sure many white women have come up against all sorts of discrimination which is why intersectional feminism is a thing.

On the face of it, it does seem quite a tokenistic. It depends whether being in the ‘public facing area’ benefitted those black employees or whether it just made the company look good. And the key thing is what is that company going to do after BHM to empower those employees?

It’s part of anti-racism work to challenge these things to ensure it genuinely benefits black people in a sustainable way.

FYI when you talk about Black people, you are supposed to capitalise the B.

The explicit segregation thing seems a bit problematic, even if it was supposed to make a point about empathising with feeling left out.

Otherwise sounds like normal celebration of black history month.

The initiative of having only Black people visible as staff on the day does sound odd without any other info, but that aside, imo you're unreasonable for "wanting us to stop talking about differences and just get along". Ignoring/not talking about the different life experiences of different groups of people does nothing to actually help people are are oppressed or discriminated against. It sounds nice, to just be able to stop mentioning that people are different at all, but you can surely see how that wouldn't actually help.

This was my thinking - depends on the industry obviously, but it does seem like a bit of a stunt if what they did was put all the Black staff into public facing positions for one day and then shut them back into the back office or whatever and consider it 'job done'.

I work at a VERY non-diverse place and they literally put every single employee who is a person of colour into the marketing material but do nothing else for them, it's purely for show.

I suppose it depends how the Black people in your work felt about it. If it was a White person who came up with the plan for the day as a token gesture then that’s shit. But if it was thought of by a Black person at your work and the Black people involved in it were happy with how it went, then great.

Some of these replies are so rude. I don't see how segregation based on colour, a nice little bit of corporate apartheid, or belittling white people for thinking it's odd or wrong is supposed to get people on side?

Do you often find that insulting and ridiculing them brings them round to your perspective?

I heard this on big brother last night and wondered what it meant 😬😳

As has been said, that’s not unconscious bias.

I think what you’re guilty of is naivety. The whole “I don’t see colour” thing has been shown over and over to be unhelpful at best.

Have you seen this image before? To me “why can’t we just get along” is giving everyone one box so they’re “equal”.