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?

Just clearing up a few things that have come up.
the people asked to work were volunteers, no one was forced to participate.

if you google Morgan freeman on BHM I think he sums it up nicely.

I'd maybe think about how you'd feel if it was a group you actively identify with that is somehow 'othered' by society. Eg - the obvious one, women. How would you feel if this activity was done swapping the people involved for women?

If you feel the same, I'd hazard you're not a racist or anything like that, just not sure this is the best way to deal with issues for this group of people. If you feel differently, I'd start thinking about why that is. If it's hard to pinpoint, the answer is probably bias. It's not wrong to have bias, everyone has it, but it helps to be aware of it.

says who? It's a very recent stylistic choice, made by the American Associated press (and we all know that culture, language and experiences of racism are very different between the UK and US). Nobody has to follow it, many people (of all colours) disagree with it https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/03/word-black-capital-letter-blackness
OP isn't 'supposed' to do anything