Education and Enrichment

Unconcious and Implicit Bias

Unconscious bias occurs when someone who does not know you makes assumptions about your character, intelligence or capabilities based on how you look, speak or behave. This person does so not realizing that he or she is thinking or reacting this way.

"There are many signs of unconscious and conscious bias happening in the workplace, but particularly across society during this time of societal unrest," said Denise L. Caleb, executive vice president and chief transformation officer at Talent Plus Inc. in Denver. "The signs can be through exclusion, unfair practices, off-color jokes, stereotyping commentary, and just general unfair and unkind treatment of others." Workplace experts say relying on employee complaints to combat bias, whether conscious or unconscious, is not enough."Being proactive and pre-emptively diagnosing areas of concern is where the focus should lie," said Janine Yancey, chief executive officer at Emtrain, a San Francisco-based workplace culture training firm. "One of the areas that is most readily identifiable is the 'us versus them' dynamic, which is often fueled by unconscious bias. Sometimes it plays out between management and employees, and other times it's between employees and [their] team members."

An us-versus-them scenario can present itself in subtle ways.

"From employees discussing where a person of color is from because they assume they're foreign born, to groups forming to belittle a co-worker for their ideals and values," Yancey said. "Instead of waiting for a complaint to come—which may never come—it's crucial that management engages with employees on a consistent basis, promotes dialogue and analyzes where any potential 'hot spots' reside." Once those practices are in place, then managers must work to rectify issues via an established unconscious-bias

Take the Harvard Implicit Bias Test and test your Implicit Bias!

Watch a short clip on how to retrain your brain:

Februrary is Black History Month

Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. It honors the contributions and sacrifices of African Americans who have helped shape the nation. Black History Month celebrates the rich cultural heritage, triumphs and adversities that are an indelible part of our country's history.

Learn about the Origins of Black History Month from The Association for the Study of African American Life and History

Watch a video for Black History Month:

ASALH 2023 Black History Month Theme: Black Resistance

African Americans have resisted historic and ongoing oppression, in all forms, especially the racial terrorism of lynching, racial pogroms, and police killings since our arrival upon these shores. These efforts have been to advocate for a dignified self-determined life in a just democratic society in the United States and beyond the United States political jurisdiction. The 1950s and 1970s in the United States was defined by actions such as sit-ins, boycotts, walk outs, strikes by Black people and white allies in the fight for justice against discrimination in all sectors of society from employment to education to housing. Black people have had to consistently push the United States to live up to its ideals of freedom, liberty, and justice for all. Systematic oppression has sought to negate much of the dreams of our griots, like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, and our freedom fighters, like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Septima Clark, and Fannie Lou Hamer fought to realize. Black people have sought ways to nurture and protect Black lives, and for autonomy of their physical and intellectual bodies through armed resistance, voluntary emigration, nonviolence, education, literature, sports, media, and legislation/politics. Black led institutions and affiliations have lobbied, litigated, legislated, protested, and achieved success.
Continue reading about this year's theme here

Lift Every Voice and Sing

Often referred to as "The Black National Anthem," Lift Every Voice and Sing was a hymn written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson in 1900. His brother, John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954), composed the music for the lyrics. A choir of 500 schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School, where James Weldon Johnson was principal,  first performed the song in public in Jacksonville, Florida to celebrate President Abraham Lincoln's birthday.

At the turn of the 20th century, Johnson's lyrics eloquently captured the solemn yet hopeful appeal for the liberty of Black Americans. Set against the religious invocation of God and the promise of freedom, the song was later adopted by NAACP and prominently used as a rallying cry during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. 

		Witness History: Black History Launched by BBC as an extension of its Witness History podcast series, Witness Black History features interviews with people who were actually present for, or have close ties to key moments in Black and civil rights history.
		Historically Black As part of The Washington Post's coverage of the Smithsonian's new National Museum of African American History and Culture, people submitted dozens of objects that make up their own lived experiences of black history, creating a "people's museum" of personal objects, family photos and more. The Historically Black podcast brings those objects and their stories to life through interviews, archival sound and music.