Aversive racists regard themselves as nonprejudiced but, at the same time, harbor negative feelings and beliefs about members of minority groups. Aversive racism was originally hypothesized to characterize the attitudes of many welleducated and liberal Whites in the United States, toward Blacks, but the basic principles apply to the attitudes of members of dominant groups toward minority groups in other countries with strong contemporary egalitarian values but discriminatory histories or policies.
Despite its subtle expression, aversive racism has resulted in significant and pernicious consequences, in many ways paralleling the effects of traditional, overt racism e.
Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches. Navigating away from this page will delete your results. Please save your results to "My Self-Assessments" in your profile before navigating away from this page. They give the example of a Black man who sued an employer for wrongful termination. Yes, he did do something wrong and got placed on probation, and yes he did screw up a little while on probation; but he argued a White man with a similar record was reassigned within the company, got an extra chance.
So he was treated fairly with respect to the company policies, but not fairly with respect to the comparison with this other case. He lost his suit. The laws are based on the notion that discrimination is an act directed toward an outgroup member, and do little about ingroup favoritism.
Although its manner of expression is indirect and subtle, the consequences of aversive racism are as insidious as those of overt racism: the systematic restriction of social and economic opportunities for Blacks. The authors have experimented with ways to shift identification to one group, to build a common group identity, and report that this reduces instances of bias.
There are, of course, difficulties making this happen in the real world. If two officers aboard a submarine, for example, are having a philosophical disagreement about how orders should be executed, each would provide an SBAR and work collaboratively to make a joint recommendation. In the case of parties who disagree over an issue involving race, the SBAR tool might be reframed as Situation, Background, Acknowledgment and Rebuilding.
Both sides would share their backgrounds and acknowledge the other's perspective without comparing it to their own—see 3 below , enabling them to reimagine the situation and rebuild a new way to move forward. Success may not be possible, but they will have made an earnest effort. In the early s AHRQ, , researchers pioneered the technique to help eliminate medical team members' ingrained biases; specifically, nurses were taught to use the DESC Script with abusive physicians in an effort to develop a more assertive and authoritative tone.
In the case of racism in the workplace, employers seeking honest communication should use a modified DESC Script, allowing the parties to Describe, Express and Specify the nature of the racism encountered and Collaborate on a solution.
Because racism is completely unacceptable from any party going into such a discussion, Consequences are less important than collaboration toward a solution. Human brains are wired to process information by finding similarities and differences; we intuitively compare and contrast everything imaginable. When someone aggrieved by overt or aversive racism describes their experiences, listeners have a natural tendency to be defensive or to try to identify parallels with their own experiences.
This is conflation, the biggest mistake made by most parties guilty of inadvertent racism or microaggression. Don't do it.
Listen to others with an open mind; hear their story without injecting yourself into it. Take it all in and learn. Most of us have not lived through mass genocide, so we cannot draw legitimate parallels between our lives and those of its survivors, nor pretend to understand how they feel about it. This is why slogans like "All Lives Matter" are offensive to black individuals who have endured racism for years, and why comparisons of various events to the Holocaust are offensive to Jews.
When driving open and honest dialogue, HR professionals and people managers should emphasize that the purpose of getting together is discussion, not debate or disagreement. Set up discussion rules. Articulate that the point of the conversation is to chart a course for future actions to eliminate racism from the workplace. Sometimes, discussing matters too deeply can result in feelings of indignation and invalidation.
This is not acceptable. Listen to people's varying perspectives and find ways to shape future actions. Debating past perceptions of particular details will only result in failure.
People managers and HR professionals are encouraged to treat open discussions of racism the way they would discussions of job performance. Avoid blame or attribution and focus on behaviors. Define a challenging yet attainable measurable goal or objective to which all parties must ascribe and for which failure to do so is equivalent to a resignation.
Consistent measurement is key, as with all other feedback.
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