Examining Your Own Bias

I recently read that Abraham Lincoln was a racist. What? How could he be racist if he freed the slaves? This was the start of my re-examination of racism and bias and what that means for me as a planner.



During the session, we will not decide whether Abraham Lincoln is a racist.

 The purpose of this session is to equip you with the insights needed to understand how personal bias can get in the way of creating truly inclusive, innovative engagement processes. We start with you. You are biased. I am biased. Everyone has bias impacting how they perceive the world. How do we manage those biases? In this session, we will use storytelling, a self-inventory, and an opportunity to share with others to explore conscious and unconscious bias and what we can each do to build a more inclusive world. This is truly a life-altering process for anyone willing to closely examine themselves, their surroundings, and their practices. You may be a truly evolved, woke human, but inclusiveness is a spectrum. Only those open to moving the bar should participate.



I will share my struggles with bias to help others understand everyone has bias. Being vulnerable about bias helps participants to be open to critical evaluation of their own bias. Participants will go through an individual, structured self-evaluation process to better understand their bias both conscious and unconscious. Once complete, the in-person participants will break out into smaller groups to discuss potential strategies to combat personal biases both theirs and of their participants. The virtual participants will be broken into (small groups). We will compile strategies to combat bias, strengthen inclusion, and move important conversions forward breaking down systemic racism and sexism. This can be presented hybrid, in-person only, and virtual only. Past participants of all races said this was the most meaningful conversation about inclusion they have ever participated in.



Presentation about conscious and unconscious bias using personal perspective to create a safe space to further discuss systemic racism and sexism and the impact on a community or organizations ability to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion.



Individual assessment of conscious and unconscious bias using a tool based upon scientific research developed by our firm. It is based upon the Implicit Association Test (IAT) is often used to measure implicit biases about race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, and other topics. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html



Small group discussion of strategies to combat bias, strengthen inclusion, and move important conversations forward breaking down system racism and sexism.



Report out of small groups regarding learning objectives, findings, strategies for practitioners.