I absolutely love this commercial! I often wonder how different our world would be if we listened to each other’s stories. And as we focus on building community and empathy this month, this video is a perfect discussion starter.
When talking about building community, that habit of the month for cultivating our emotional resilience, we need to talk about the perception we have of others. Elena Aguilar defines implicit biases as the unconscious attitudes and stereotypes that affect our responses to certain groups of people, especially around race and ethnicity, class, gender, and language. Implicit (or unconscious) bias often operates without our awareness. We’ve been absorbing biases since we were born, so we all have them. It takes work to become aware of them and to make sure we’re not operating from them.
What are you doing to take advantage of opportunities to connect with people regardless of how you initially perceived them? Want to learn more about implicit bias? I highly recommend reading Blind Spot and taking some of these implicit bias tests through Harvard’s Project Implicit.
That is an amazing video! I’ve forwarded it to myself at work to share with others! Earlier this year we had unconscious bias training, but the conversation was cut a bit short and left many people feeling unsettled. Love the idea of continuing the conversations over a ‘beverage of your choice’! Thank you for sharing this resource!