Despite your best intentions and without your awareness, racial stereotypes and assumptions creep into your mind and affect your actions. It’s called implicit bias, and NAR has partnered with the Perception Institute to help REALTORS® overcome it.
Watch this 50-minute video that illustrates how the human brain’s automatic association of stereotypes with particular groups can cause people to treat those who are different from them unfairly. The video applies these concepts to the work of REALTORS® and offers strategies to override this bias.
You can learn more about your individual implicit biases by taking an Implicit Association Test, developed by Harvard University. There are several tests that measure your implicit bias about race, disability, weight, age, gender, and more. Each one is a structured like a video game where you sort categories of pictures and words. Take a test.
These are ALL ASSUMPTIONS, because, no one can read another mind. In my opinion, this is OVER THE TOP racist, suggesting, that any mind automatically is racist. What an insult to the normal individual. If this be the case, every single individual in the entire world is racist. That just isn’t true. This could certainly add fire to someones racist beliefs & could possibly cause situations that don’t exist. Not fair to assume Realtors are this type of people. We Realtors already have enough bias to face each & every day, simply, based on peoples perceptions of our commission we… Read more »
Glenda, I encourage you to watch the video linked in this article. It’s great at explaining implicit bias. Everyone does have implicit bias, but being aware of and acknowledging your implicit bias helps you identify and override it so it doesn’t become fuel to committing racist actions either consciously or unconsciously. I agree that it’s painful to absorb that everyone has implicit bias, but we must all do our part to work against racism within ourselves and others. I hope you are willing to join this journey. A good first step would be watching the video and really thinking about… Read more »
So if I understand this correctly…my professional association is informing me they have determined I am a secret racist and I need to change my unconscious thoughts. It is truly sad that my association thinks so little of me. In MY OPINION, my association should not tell me I need to acknowledge I’m a secret racist and feel bad about myself.
Truly sad indeed.