Race – Witness unconscious bias

Can we file unconscious bias in there with intention? you might remember me talking about intention in my post about the Shades Of Noir resources. & it feels like maybe this is a similar thing. “oh but I didn’t mean to hurt/ oppress/ be violent to you, so that’s okay right?” Thats not a direct quote but I’m sure I’ve said things to that affect before. But if you hurt someone, you hurt someone right? I always thought intent mattered, like it’s worse if you did it intentionally. Worse if you intentionally tried to hurt someone vs hurt them without thinking. But is it? is it different for them? The feeling is probably very similar, no? because we can never truly know someones intent. & in the moment I’m not sure our first thought is ‘what was the intent’ I think the first thought is ‘that’s hurtful’
In relationships that aren’t the ones we have with students or in the context of university there is often a dialogue (not always) . So when someone hurts us, there is hopefully an opportunity to let them know. To say when you did that, it made me feel XYZ, did you mean that? (or however communicating sounds for you) but in an academic context we don’t give students that option, or at least I don’t feel we do. Don’t tell me a feedback form does this!

So all then, that they are left with is the feeling, no intention, no explanation. Not that that would justify the behaviour or the hurt necessarily. But if I reflect on times where someone has hurt me and I’ve been able to verbalise that (Hi privilege my old friend) it’s made me feel better to know if the intention was different. Or if there was no intention to hurt me or harm me.

So even though this idea that intention is irrelevant and unconscious or not makes no difference applies in lots of scenarios. It seems to me that it is especially important to consider this in the context of our work in education, in a scenario that often is unbalanced in terms of power or hierarchy. Even if like me, you wouldn’t choose the Teacher/ learner hierarchy. A scenario that doesn’t allow for us to work through the feeling, or ask about it, or verbalise it. Now I’m wondering if there is a way to foster environments that REALLY and truly allow students to say ‘this session made me feel XYZ’ or ‘these references were harmful because’ not as an opportunity for us to continue to he harmful and just then say ‘oh I didn’t mean to’ and also not to put the owness on students to correct our bad behaviours. But to create more of a balance, to create a space that feels open and accepting of diverse reactions and feelings.

Honestly I wish I knew how to do that, or if it’s even a good idea? or if I’m just giving us (did I say Us to alleviate my own responsibility? when really what I meant is me) yet another pass for the behaviour in the first place….