Do I have unconscious biases? What does that term really mean? How do you identify an internal biases? These are all questions I had going into my aborted attempt at attending the Virginia Association of Museum's Unconscious Bias training hosted at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture on Monday, February 10th. As a part of my research and planning for my Leadership and Advocacy Fellowship, I felt that it would be useful to participate in this developmental opportunity. The premise of this workshop was that it was designed for all museum staff to help participants better understand unconscious bias and give them tools to create empathy and understanding for the visitors and communities they serve.
This workshop was given by the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities (https://inclusiveva.org/) and it's stated goal was that participants should walk away with an understanding of the individual actions you can take to foster an inclusive environment at your institution and eliminate bias and prejudice at your museum.
Before touching on some of the topics discussed, I should note that due to a last minute work commitment, I was only able to attend half of the workshop. Ho
wever, even only attending a half day session the ideas and concepts explored were really eye opening, useful and insightful. The training started with defining diversity and inclusion, two concepts that I believe are often used (incorrectly) interchangeably. Using a mixture of lectures and group activities some of the topics highlighted included how does unconscious bias turn up in modern museums, what are the values, norms and behaviors that characterize a group experience and the diversity wheel. One of the most shocking pieces of information given during the course for me was that according to the Center, there are 105 unconscious biases that we as human's grapple with in our day to day lives. A daunting fact to consider as I continue to research issues related to diversity and inclusion in the museum field.