Overcoming Implicit Bias Builds a Better Auxiliary

By ANACO David G. Porter, National Diversity Team, published in The Navigator 2020

Implicit bias.

What is this? Simply put, implicit bias is the having of “attitudes towards people and or associate stereotypes with them without our conscious knowledge.” Thoughts and feelings become implicit when we are unaware that those thoughts and feelings held by us exist and then become mistakenly applied to another thus forming the bias associated with those feelings and thoughts of which can physically or psychologically injure another.

Things are not always as they seem. One must account for the known – unknowns. Not all people of a particular race, ethnicity, religion, or orientation are bad. Good and bad exist in us all. What separates us are motive, morals, up-bringing, and opportunity. People generally formulate opinions of people, place and things based around their exposure to those people, places, and things or through someone else’s view of same imposed on another... taught and learned behavior. None of us are born biased or prejudiced we are exposed to bias and prejudice. It comes down to what we do with that exposure. Do we put the exposure into context and judge it as a singular event or do we lump any, and all like it into one category and develop a bias to it?

In order to remove our biases, we must first acknowledge that we have them and then examine why. As a young police officer in New York City’s 114th Precinct in Astoria, Queens, I was exposed to implicit bias. I had received a call to investigate a past robbery and was sent to an address with my partner, who was white, to take a report. Upon our arrival, we were met by the husband who was consoling his wife. They were white (Greek). The wife was the victim of the heinous crime. I was the recorder in my Sector unit that night and as such had the responsibility of interviewing the complainant and taking the report. The woman refused to talk to me because her assailant was black and even though there I was, a police officer in uniform looking to assist her and seek out the robber for an arrest, I was black first like her assailant and therefore guilty by association. Astoria was and still is a beautiful neighborhood alive with a diverse population, foods, art, music, businesses, and homes; however, the woman’s singular negative contact that was so ever brief caused her to paint an entire race of people with a broad brush. To this day, I wonder what she would have done and how she would have reacted if her assailant was white?

Acknowledging the presence of our implicit biases will at least allow for the thought process to begin to question if we should dislike a person or a thing in the immediate rather than painting with that broad brush developing a bias towards a group of people or things. As I write this during the month of February, celebrated as Black History Month, I ask and challenge you all to be introspective and examine what your biases might be, and further, how best to address them. In doing so, we may become more fair, diverse and inclusive of people to make for a better Auxiliary in our recruitment and our retention practices.