This 2016 video from the New York Times and PBS’s POV was produced by Saleem Reshamwala and features interviews with experts to explain the meaning behind implicit bias and how it works. POV (a cinema term for “point of view”) is television’s longest-running showcase for independent nonfiction films. This video first introduces the concept of implicit bias, pointing to the example of how, in the United States, we typically associate peanut butter with jelly. The experts interviewed in the piece argue that similar implicit associations and connections are made in the ways we see and understand race. At the end of the video Reshamwala points out that “if you’re seeing this and thinking that it doesn’t apply to you, you might be falling prey to the blind-spot bias”–a bias which allows individuals to see bias in others but not themselves.

discussion

According to the video, what is implicit bias and where does it come from?

Do you agree that society and culture teach us to associate Black men with violence? Why or why not?

Did you find the peanut butter and jelly allegory helpful in understanding implicit bias? 

What other examples of implicit bias can you think of?