How Does One Rid Themselves Of Their Biases?

Your points are valid. There should be more initiative taken to prevent these biases. People should associate themselves and children with people of all colors so that they are taught at a young age that everyone is equal. I believe we unconsciously create these biases during childhood. Children who aren't brought up with other colored individuals, when they grow up and are surrounded by other races feel as if they are different because they aren't accustomed to different races.

This thread brings up some interesting points. I agree with Rachel’s opinion in that society and individual upbringings have a lot to do with one’s racial bias. One’s environment is an important factor in the shaping of our racial bias; perhaps one has lived in a racially uniform community, and is thus more open to subconsciously accepting criticism of another race. Such amplifies one's racial bias. In addition, the media also plays a huge role in the amplification of our bias, often showing petty crimes and events that involve black individuals, and failing to show more severe, corporate crimes that involve white individuals.

From an earlier thread, I learned that our unconscious bias develops at an early age. Thus, to work at ridding one’s racial bias, education on this matter should be taught to children at a very young age. As Julia mentioned, children should learn that people of all colors are equal and deserve equal respect.

I think that such bias stems from an interplay between society and personal upringing. Like the vicious cycle of OCD, these biases are perpetuated by unconscious beliefs developed throughout our upringing, which are then passed on to the next generation because of their influence on media which is a function of and response to such biases. For example, like Julia and others mentioned, racist comments, while seemingly insignificant, when observed consistently throughout a person’s upbringing, create a specific image or idea in a person’s head such as that of superiority when refering to black men. This idea as well as others are then subconsciously engrained in our minds. Now, if we look at different jobs, the effects of such unconsciously engrained steriotypes are present in any job since it is influenced by the person doing it, however, it just happens to be the case that its more prominent in the media field because of the public nature of jobs in the media field (i.e they are intended to inform the public's opinion on different matters). Therefore, different things we hear in the news influence and create these subconscious biases during our upringing and are then perpetuated on by the next generation, which exhibit them again when they are performing their jobs.

Having established that, I want to add on to what Rebecca mentioned above about the disparities in jails and the focus of the media on crimes done by black men.
According to the national association for the advancement of colored people (NCAA), while African Americans and hispanics make up approximately a quarter of the US population, they comprise about 58% of all prisoners. More specifically, African Americans are incarcerated nearly 6 times the rate of white men. I think such data serves to support how such unconscious biases truly influence how society functions and how people do their jobs. In the media, this is seen by the focus they choose to put on specific topics vs others. For example, black men committing a crime. This is because not only are they influenced by these biases themselves, but also, they know that people respond to them unconsciously. And since their main objective is to get you hooked in and get more views (in order to make money through advertisements etc...) they often dramatize things or choose to highlight specific topics and ignore others (clack men crimes vs white). Again, the cycle is continuous.

Also, notably, this is relevant to movies too and not just the news, as directors make specific choices to highlight their main theme. For example, in a beautiful mind, the idea of the faithful supporting wife was clearly manifested although it didn't correspond to the biographical facts because the director knows that people unconsciously respond to such ques or stereotypes.

That's a possible solution, but I don't think it would be really efficient. Actually, I don't believe there is one specific solution because the problem is deeply rooted and spread. Essentially, everyone has some degree of bias because in essence, who we are and our personality is shaped by society and our upbringing, for example, our ideas about what is right or wrong stem from socially accepted notions of behavior. However, some people may have more bias than others,to a detrimental or negative effect. A screening would help eliminate such extremes, however not the problem. What we need, I believe, is to tackle the underlying effects causing the problem, basically, by breaking this continuous circuit. The first step to doing that is through education and promoting awareness of the issue of unconscious bias or stereotypes. For examples, parents being careful not to make racist comments and the newer generation becoming more informed about the matter will help lessen the effects of the issue by decreasing the extent to which it is passed on to the next generation. Little by little, we can hope to diminish such effects to the extent that they don't effect the way society functions (i.e causing ethnic disparities in jobs or incarceration rates.)