We Must Defeat Implicit Bias If We Are to Defeat the Hate | Dr. Suzanne Barakat
Channel: Muslim Community Center - MCC East Bay
Date: 2019-08-17

After heart-wrenching spoken word poetry by a close friend of Deah Barakat, Dr. Suzanne Barakat speaks about how implicit bias can contribute to hate and to the hate crime that claimed her brother's life. 

Implicit bias or implicit social cognition refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.

Dr. Suzanne Barakat was born and raised in North Carolina, and attended UNC Chapel Hill for undergrad and medical school. She completed her residency training in the Department of Family & Community Medicine at UCSF San Francisco General Hospital. She currently is a hospitalist with Sutter Health and outpatient family medicine physician in Oakland, CA. She is passionate about women’s health, mental health, global health, and social justice. 

She is the sister of Deah Barakat, one of the three American Muslim college students murdered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on February 2015. When her brother, his wife, and her sister were killed, Dr. Barakat emerged as a spokesperson for her family, taking to local and national media to amplify the legacy of #OurThreeWinners and to speak out against the increasing Islamophobia and violence targeting Muslims.

This talk was delivered at the Muslim Community Center - East Bay (MCC East Bay) in Pleasanton, California on Friday, August 17, 2019.

Watch other important topics addressing community & social justice issues in the American-Muslim community at http://mcceastbay.org/community 
More special guests hosted at the MCC: http://mcceastbay.org/guests

Hear Sidi Farris Barakat speak at MCC: https://youtu.be/4gjI3ouYf0U

More community social justice events at the MCC: http://mcceastbay.org/social-justice

The Our Three Winners Foundation is dedicated to continuing the legacy of Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha, and Razan Abu-Salha. Known as Our Three Winners, they were each driven by a love for humanity inspired by their faith. Learn about this Foundation at: https://ourthreewinners.org

Sign up for the MCC's weekly event updates at http://www.mcceastbay.org/newsletter 

More MCC East Bay: 
Website: http://www.mcceastbay.org 
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MCCPleasanton 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mcceastbay

What is Implicit Bias?

Also known as implicit social cognition, implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.  These biases, which encompass both favorable and unfavorable assessments, are activated involuntarily and without an individual’s awareness or intentional control.  Residing deep in the subconscious, these biases are different from known biases that individuals may choose to conceal for the purposes of social and/or political correctness. Rather, implicit biases are not accessible through introspection.

The implicit associations we harbor in our subconscious cause us to have feelings and attitudes about other people based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, age, and appearance. These associations develop over the course of a lifetime beginning at a very early age through exposure to direct and indirect messages. In addition to early life experiences, the media and news programming are often-cited origins of implicit associations.

A Few Key Characteristics of Implicit Biases

- Implicit biases are pervasive.  Everyone possesses them, even people with avowed commitments to impartiality such as judges.
- Implicit and explicit biases are related but distinct mental constructs.  They are not mutually exclusive and may even reinforce each other.
- The implicit associations we hold do not necessarily align with our declared beliefs or even reflect stances we would explicitly endorse.
- We generally tend to hold implicit biases that favor our own ingroup, though research has shown that we can still hold implicit biases against our ingroup.
- Implicit biases are malleable. Our brains are incredibly complex, and the implicit associations that we have formed can be gradually unlearned through a variety of debiasing techniques.