Unintentional but Still Impactful
I was nervous as I sat down to take the Implicit Association Test because I would really like to consider myself as unbiased when considering different identities. This fear almost leaked into my choice of IAT test as I did not want to be “caught” with a bias for a particular skin tone color, identity, gender what have you. I almost chose the Sexuality IAT, thinking that as a gay person I would not present a bias that would make me a “bad” person. However, as a privileged white, straight passing female, I felt it was important to be open to having my biases exposed. I chose to explore my bias for skin color and while I answered the contextual questions as neutrally as possible, the test showed a slight bias for light skinned people to dark skinned people. I felt defensive and immediately tried to remember past conversations or classes in which the validity of this test had been questioned. I mean, I certainly do not intend to be biased — I intend to be the opposite…
To feel better about myself, I chose another IAT in which I figured I would show bias toward group usually considered to be the “out group” comparing gay and straight couples. My answers to questions directly exploring my bias did lean toward a preference for gay people, not because there is any real preference there, but because that preference does appear when there is a choice due to an increased potential for finding a partner or a connection due to similarity in identities and experience. Even that demonstrates a bias, or at least a contributor to whatever lens through which we interpret the world, or motivation that is guiding us. Perhaps clarifying our motivations is as important as clarifying bias.
…It is an interesting feeling to not feel or intend bias and yet exhibit it — another way that intention does not always equate to impact. I’ve learned that it is more important to be curious about biases instead of being avoidant of them. I became more curious to learn how biases might affect my opinions and work as pretending they do not exist might decrease the quality of my work or endanger my ability to understand others in context. In considering the work of this course, where addressing cultural considerations will be key, a leading motivator of ours must be to pay attention how our biases, intentions, and motivations, affect the ways in which we interact with our NGO partners. To decenter ourselves by not prioritizing the need to perform a lack of bias, we can become curious about how our biases act as lenses and inform our interactions with the world.
Just as “Ghosts in the Nursery” argues that one must have access to their childhood pain in order to avoid inflicting that pain upon a new generation, one must have access to their biases in order to determine how, not if, those biases will translate to a lens that threatens our work. Even if unintentional, bias can be impactful.
