Unconscious Bias at Work

Most of us suffer from some unconscious bias, also known as implicit bias or learned stereotypes that affect our thoughts and actions beneath the level of conscious thought. It's human nature. (You can learn a little about your own implicit biases and help researchers by taking Harvard's online tests for free here.)

I was recently reminded by a recent experience that this unconscious bias has real effects on people's lives and careers. There is a certain prestigious university in Nairobi that I visit frequently for work - there is a grant that I'm in charge of monitoring there, so I stop by for site visits and meetings. I've been going there for over a year, and every time I get to the main gate there is some type of security issue. Even though my contact at the university calls ahead to alert the guards of my arrival, they always ask me to get out of the car and walk to the pedestrian entrance. Sometimes, I have to walk through a metal detector. Other times, my bag is checked. Every time, they check my ID and fill out a visitor form for me.

Because I have always gone on my own with an Embassy motor pool driver (i.e., an official driver for the Embassy), I assumed this was fairly standard. Last time, I learned from my driver that he has been driving plenty of U.S. diplomats to this university for many years - and he told me not once has he ever seen one receive the treatment I did. None of them have ever had to get out of the car or negotiate with security or call one of the higher-ups at the university to be allowed onto the campus, especially when they arrived (as I always do) in an U.S. Embassy car with diplomatic license plates.

That day, I had this realization as a guard asked me why I was there and was confused by my answer of, "I'm a diplomat from the U.S. Embassy, and I have a meeting with one of your professors." He had to call another guy over who said, "So, you're a student." All of my issues gaining access to the compound over the past year suddenly made sense, assuming security was treating me like a student without an ID card rather than a diplomat with a scheduled meeting.

Was it my gender? Was it my age? Was it my ethnically ambiguous face? Most likely, it was a combination of all of those factors that made some people doubt my occupation, single me out, and treat me differently. Certainly, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say this was unconscious bias. They didn't intend to make me feel uncomfortable or irritated, but they responded in line with what their brains and instincts told them: I just didn't look like a diplomat.

Now, just because it's subconscious doesn't mean it's okay. I was so frustrated to learn I've been treated differently on the basis of my appearance this whole time that I raised it with my partners at the university to address with their security team. After all diplomats - and especially the U.S. Foreign Service - are more diverse than ever. (The first photo of this post is a perfect example of this that I distinctly remembered from my childhood and scoured the Internet for just for this post. It's an episode from the Kim Possible TV series [Season 2, Episode 8] featuring a diplomat at a career fair... Could they have gotten any more stereotypical?)

One of my biggest hopes is that by representing my country in the Foreign Service, I'm having an impact on how people see the diversity of the United States and its diplomatic corps - a bunch of mini-PD victories! As frustrating as it can be encountering skepticism on the basis of my appearance alone, leveraging that opportunity to transform someone's perception helps make it all worth it. For now, changing one heart and mind at a time is good enough for me.