Page 224 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

By many accounts, I found 2013 was a notable year of growth for implicit bias research,

both in terms of the range of published scholarship as well as the extent to which the concept

infiltrated the public domain. Implicit bias is increasingly being included in current events

dialogue, often in light of emotionally-charged situations such as the Trayvon Martin/George

Zimmerman altercation or the unfortunate police shooting death of Jonathan Ferrell (McLaughlin,

2013). These events spurred the City of Albany to hold a series of dialogues on Implicit Bias that

I had attended strictly as a participant and as a welcomed research observer.

As cities have experienced their own incidents of police brutality or shootings of unarmed

suspects large protests have embraced raising awareness of implicit bias causing municipalities to

use dialogues to bridge communication between the public and authorities. Beyond acknowledging

the phenomenon on municipalities using resources to placate the public, these efforts seek to

enlighten city workers, police and their citizens regarding the numerous effects of implicit bias,

both for police patrols and in larger societal exchanges in an attempt to understand these dynamics.

While conversations about implicit bias are flourishing in some arenas such as the social justice

field, the reality is that many people remain unfamiliar with the CC concept and its dynamics.

The Albany Community Conversations on Implicit Bias provided a model to help guide

conversations with those who have not yet been informed about this phenomenon. The tone used

here mirrors some of the participant statements while in conversation in an effort to illustrate how

this exchange took place and how it can be made accessible to a broader audience. Since these

conversations often originate in the context of doubt or confusion from one party, the Albany

Community Conversation dialogue took on a stronger tone in the third and final fourth dialogue

and was structured to be intentionally persuasive in an effort to help rebut political skeptics.

Note on group dialogue activities that can be used as an exercise or technique to improve outcomes:

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