Hook/ Grabber: (Have You ever been judged for the color of your skin? Or the gender you were born in?)
Smooth Transition: The impact of unconscious biases has had damaging effects on minorities.
Thesis Statement: Implicit bias negatively impacts a person’s job satisfaction, self-esteem, and mental health issues, especially for employees seen as minorities.
Supporting Evidence #1
Topic Sentence: People perceived as minorities are more likely to be rejected.
Context Summary: There is a disparity in treatment when comparing minorities to their peers who are considered nonethnic. Those who are white are have an increased likelihood to have more of a reception to their work.
Quote: “White applicants receive 50% more responses from potential employers than do black applicants with the same resume. Likewise, college professors are substantially more likely to answer student emails if the students’ names indicate that they are probably white than if the names sound like they belong to black students. And in one study online course instructors were 94% more likely to respond to discussion posts by white male students than by other students.”
Analysis: This further proves that people who are perceived as too “ethnic” are unlikely to be recognized by those in higher positions because of unconscious biases. This heavily impacts and limits the opportunities available to minorities based on characteristics that are uncontrollable.
Supporting Evidence #2:
Topic Sentence: Gender and race affect workplace experiences, sometimes even detrimentally.
Context Summary: Women are more likely to be judged on their character than their actual work ethic compared to men. People of color, men specifically, are less likely to be awarded for the same amount of work done by their white associates.
Quote: “One study found that 66% of women’s reviews contained comments about their personalities, but only 1% of men’s reviews did. These double standards can have a real impact on equity outcomes. PayScale found that men of color were 25% less likely than their white peers to get a raise when they asked for one”
Analysis: This demonstrates how implicit bias negatively impacts job satisfaction. How gender and race influence the perception of people’s work ethic, although how hard someone works is not correlated to their biology. No matter how hard you work, the only roadblock in a person’s way may be because of the unconscious biases held by those in authoritative positions.
Supporting Evidence #3:
Topic Sentence: People of color’s concerns in the workplace are more likely to be disregarded
Context Summary: People of color are more likely to be invalidated by their coworkers. Their race is associated with implicit biases that make them targets for racism from their associates in which their experiences are then undermined.
Quote: “One of the struggles of facing microinsults and microinvalidations in the workplace is that white coworkers may gaslight black coworkers and deny that a comment was racist. They may tell a black coworker that they are “being too sensitive.””
Analysis: Unconscious bias contributes to the feuling of unjust treatment which in turn, encourages feelings of spite and anger because they are being disregarded. This affects their job satisfaction and self esteem. The gas lighting also damages one’s mental health because their feelings and experiences are being so blatantly ignored.
Supporting Evidence #4:
Topic Sentence: Unconscious bias based on gender negatively impacts women’s workplace experience.
Context Summary: In the workplace, there is no separation of gender and role. People see gender before title or position. Women are being treated unfairly just because they are women. Their associates are unable to differentiate their work and themselves.
Quote: “It was still in his brain that I’m not just a CEO, I’m a female CEO and working with me might be a minefield of dangerous he has to think about. Not because of anything he would ever do or anything I would ever do but because men neither of us had ever met couldn’t control their bro havior.”
Analysis: Based on first hand experience, this shows that implicit biases based on gender contributes to a workplace environment that is perceived as “dangerous”. This leads to mental deterioration and exhaustion from always having to be hyperaware in order to feel “safe”.
Supporting Evidence #5:
Topic Sentence: Members of the black community are treated unfairly in the workplace based on their skin color.
Context Summary: Black employees are treated unfairly by being held to a higher standard than their white employees. They are then punished because although they are working just as hard or even harder than some of their colleagues, they are not being compensated accordingly.
Quote: “I was promoted to a new position but paid less than my male white co-worker, though I had more experience. This same co-worker revealed to me that management said I needed to “prove myself” first.”
Analysis: Based on first-hand experience, this shows that implicit bias contributes to a hostile work environment, thus affecting job satisfaction and self-esteem. By being told that they needed to “prove” themselves regardless of the fact they had more experience, it is concluded that this led to unhappiness in the workplace because of the unfairness experienced.
