Jessica Nordell is an award-winning author, science writer, and speaker known for blending rigorous science with compassionate humanity. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and many others. She is the recipient of a Gracie Award from American Women in Radio and Television, was named a Best New Poet by Tracy K. Smith, and was a 2022 featured speaker at SXSW.
In this episode, Eric and Jessica discuss her book, The End of Bias: A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias.
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Jessica Nordell and I Discuss How to Overcome Unconscious Bias and…
- Her book, The End of Bias: A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias
- What bias is and how prevalent it is
- Her personal experience being on the receiving end of another person’s bias
- Homophily
- The implecations of prejudice being a habit and a result of conditioning
- How labels and categorizing plant seeds of bias
- Ways to lessen the impact of categories on our perspectives
- Why being “color blind” can be so harmful to people (despite the well-meaning approach)
- Taking on more and broader perspectives helps us better understand the world
- Seeing the groups we don’t belong to as just as complex as our own group
- The fundamental attribution error
- The role of empathy in dissolving biases
- Hyper-objects
Jessica Nordell links:
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Kenja Hassan says
The image used as a logo for this show of a light colored peaceful wolf and vicious dark colored wolf is a perfect example of how implicit biases form and are perpetuated. Why did your graphic designer choose this coloration and why didn’t anyone associated with the show question this choice? Although these are not humans, images like these perpetuate the idea that dark colored animate beings, including dark skinned people are inherently bad, and lighter colored beings, including people are inherently good. In this case, you send the signal that the objective is to be more like the calm wolf and so progression towards lightness is the desired goal of listening to these shows, and to life. Have you seen the before & after images of Native American youth removed from their homes and forced into boarding schools? That image reminds me of those children forced to become white inwardly and outwardly to remove the savage from them. Have you seen how many skin lightening creams exist throughout the world? Have seen how much pressure dark skinned people are under to transform themselves to become white and how destructive that his to ones emotional and physical health? Have you seen how often the words, views and ideas of dark skinned people are ignored yet light skinned or white people can say the same thing and have it be valued? Consider how the use of light colors and dark colors in marketing, storytelling, movies, picture books and more reinforce negative implicit biases against dark skinned people. Consider changing your logo.