Library Resources: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA): Unconscious Bias and Microaggressions

Questions to Consider

What is bias?

How does bias affect our interactions?

What are microaggressions and how do they impact those who experience them?

Articles

Bias
Human communication always takes place in a context, through a medium, and among individuals and groups situated historically, politically, economically, culturally, and socially. This state of affairs is neither bad nor good. It simply is. Bias is a small word that identifies these influences. From: 21st Century Communication: A Reference Handbook (Vol. 1. ).
Unconscious bias or conscious bias?
Nana Jean: On Dehumanizing Metaphors
Microaggressions Are A Big Deal: How To Talk Them Out And When To Walk Away
How to Respond to Microaggressions
Unconscious Bias: How It Affects Us More Than We Know
Why We Stereotype Strangers; No matter how open-minded we are, we all have unconscious biases, a social psychologist says. Here's how to deal with them.
Test Yourself for Hidden Bias
Psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia and the University of Washington created "Project Implicit" to develop Hidden Bias Tests—called Implicit Association Tests, or IATs, in the academic world—to measure unconscious bias.

Videos

How to Overcome Our Biases? Walk Boldly Toward Them.

Our biases can be dangerous, even deadly — as we've seen in the cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner, in Staten Island, New York. Diversity advocate Vernā Myers looks closely at some of the subconscious attitudes we hold toward out-groups. She makes a plea to all people: Acknowledge your biases. Then move toward, not away from, the groups that make you uncomfortable. In a funny, impassioned, important talk, she shows us how.

Eliminating Microaggressions: The Next Level of Inclusion
Microaggression is a term used for brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group. In this Talk Tiffany, lays out how this behavior manifests itself, the role you play, and what you can do to avoid perpetuating its continued existence in society.