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I watched "The Prejudice You Don't Know You Have" by Havi Carel and Richard Pettigrew. I was aware of implicit bias, but after hearing their TED talk, I understood the urgency of this matter on a deeper level. The problems they brought to the forefront made me realize that even though most of the prejudice that we watch happens on a daily basis is small, it can add up to a large issue in inequality. A lot of prejudice goes unnoticed until one looks at all the events added up. Some examples of prejudice that they mentioned were how long someone waits for their coffee, what job someone gets, how senior one could become in their profession, and how likely someone is to be sentenced to death. It is apparent that all of those problems depend on someones gender, race, age, and/or other characteristics such as disability and sexual orientation. As I learned in the video, implicit bias can be fed by society especially the media. I would wholeheartedly agree with that. The media portrays what they want to portray and does not always give all the facts. They also mentioned that the social status quo can feed stereotypes. One example I can think of in my professional life is that women must be better social workers and therapists because mostly women work at the mental health facility I work at. That is simply not true, but I could see how one could make that assumption. This example reminds me of social categorization mentioned in Chapter 13. The book states that social categorization is the process of sorting people in groups on the basis of characteristics they have in common. I was also quite disappointed when they mentioned the resume study. According to the speakers, this famous study had people send out a bunch of job applications all over the Boston area. Some were assigned typical white names like Emily or Gregg, and the others were assigned stereotypical black names such as Jamal or Laquisha. They found that the typical white names received 50% more call backs compared to the typical black names. That was very disheartening to hear.

When they were talking about this, it made me wonder why there were not more laws in place to protect people from prejudice. The speakers explained that prejudice is extremely hard to prove so legal protection is limited. Also, it is hard hold someone accountable for bias they are unconscious of and did not willingly cultivate. Therefore, it is up to us as individuals and as a society to help bring these issues to light so they can be fixed. I didnt realize how proving prejudice is such a legal gray area. As individuals, I think people often think they cannot do much as one person but as we learned, the small things add up! One way that was mentioned to fight implicit bias as a society is to try to change peoples biases when one sees it arise or try to change the makeup of leadership to be more inclusive or diversity.

The biggest lesson I took from this is to not be afraid to speak up no matter how trivial it may seem because the small micro-inequities add up! I think the presenters did a wonderful job of laying out all the facts and gave great examples. They flowed as a team quite nicely and what they had to say left a significant impression on me. I do not think I have any criticism for these speakers.