(lively music)
- Welcome everyone.
In this series, we're going to discuss how implicit bias,
a mental process shaping perspectives,
attitudes and preferences can lead
to structural discrimination.
As we start the series,
I want to go forward cautiously, optimistically,
understanding that when we discuss these issues,
everyone is affected differently by the conversation.
Certain scenarios may hit too close to home,
raise negative feelings or experiences
or otherwise detract from what we hope
is a great learning experience for everyone.
We're here to start a conversation
and start thinking about how our opinions
are informed by biases that we're not even aware of.
At the same time, for people who have lived experiences
with issues of race, class, gender
or any of the different topics we discuss here today,
we want to assure you it is not your responsibility
to explain to everyone how institutional biases
have impacted you personally,
but please participate to the extent you feel comfortable.
So with that being said, before we begin,
we want to start from a common ground and define
a few key words which will appear throughout the videos:
implicit bias, stereotype,
institutional bias and discrimination.
Implicit bias is a cognitive process that develops
how we come to associate and categorize social phenomena.
These associations are formed by a combination
of environmental factors, including personal experiences
and learned cultural traits.
Stereotype: oversimplified ideas about groups of people.
These oversimplifications can be based
on any individual characteristic.
Institutional bias: discriminatory practices and or policies
that operate at institutional levels
that extend beyond individual biases or prejudices
and lead to unequal outcomes
for groups of people stereotyped.
Discrimination: actions informed by stereotypes,
individual and institutional biases
taken against groups of people.
At a very basic level, bias is a natural cognitive process
where you make associations between stimuli.
However, when viewed in juxtaposition to the ways
in which our values and categories are socially constructed,
our biases often take on the values
of dominant societal categories
to the structural disadvantage of outgroups.
This is where biases become problematic
when they are informed by ideologies
and incorrect perceptions or stereotypes about communities.
A prime example is in our criminal justice system
where the more stereotypical
an individual's racial features are, such as skin tone,
the harsher criminal sentences imposed are.
Researchers from Villanova studied more than 12,000 cases
of African American women in prison in North Carolina,
and found that those with lighter skin tones
received more lenient sentences
and served less prison time overall
than darker-skinned women.
These researchers also found
that lighter-skinned African American women
were sentenced to 12% less prison time
than their darker-skinned counterparts.
Over time, institutional biases such as preferences
for lighter skin tones or lighter phenotypes
lead to systemic discrimination and unequal outcomes
for groups that hold different identities.
As discriminatory policies and practices
are informed by biases,
it becomes harder to correct these inequities.
The impact they have had over time is largely immeasurable.
This is why it is important to understand
the difference between equity and equality
when considering the role bias has in shaping
advantage and disadvantage in modern America.
Despite gains in civil rights and social mobility,
which have created legal access to institutions,
discrimination still persists and prevents groups
from accessing benefits and resources within institutions,
which results in disproportionate access
to opportunities for some and maintains
unequal outcomes for others.
Equality means sameness, that is everyone
is given the same access to the same tools.
This presumes everyone's needs and concerns are the same.
This view tends to overlook historical disenfranchisement
and that not everyone has had access to the same resources.
Equity helps us address unequal outcomes
and make sure that these inequalities are not the result
of discriminatory beliefs, behaviors and policies
that operate at a larger systemic level.
Now, if I were to say that we're going to give everyone
who watches this video a pair of shoes,
and we give everyone the same size shoe, that's equality.
Everyone received the same thing.
And for some people, the shoe fits,
but it might not fit everyone.
Equity would be finding out everyone's shoe needs
and giving them shoes that meet those specific needs.
Our goal in this video is to make sure
that all of our viewers have a firm understanding
in identifying the differences between implicit bias,
institutional bias, stereotype and discrimination,
and understand how they function with one another
to create and maintain advantages and disadvantages
for groups of people.
Moreover, we also hope to provide you
with a basic introduction to understanding the limits
of equality and engaging structural discrimination.
Thank you.
(lively music)