Defining Bias, Discrimination, and Racism

00:06 Bias. Revisiting that term is very important in terms of shared language, because we do need to internalize this language, so that we can continue on that transformational journey in a way that does create a significant positive change.

00:22 So bias is so many things, right? It shows up in our attitudes, in our behaviors, in our belief systems things we communicate, social stereotypes, prejudice in favor of or against one thing or person or group compared with others, usually in a way that's unfair.

00:40 So unfair, is equivalent to inequality.

00:45 And if we have inequality, we can't create that equity that I've been talking about a lot.

00:51 Discrimination is another thing.

00:53 We need to make sure we're clear on what that means.

00:56 Discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of people in groups based on identifying characteristics.

01:03 So again, it could be anything based on disability, it could be based on age, and that doesn't just mean older adults, even with children.

01:12 And I'm just gonna go off a little bit on that sometimes we forget that children are humans too.

01:18 So we want to make sure we include them.

01:20 This is not just about adults, it's about all humans.

01:23 So we don't want to put people in any type of marginalized, less than relegated fringes, all those different things that we talked about when we mentioned the word marginalization.

01:35 So any type of identifying characteristics, and those were just a couple of examples.

01:41 But think about it with each one of these terms.

01:44 Think about what that means when you think about discrimination.

01:48 How could you be a part of the problem? And how could you be a part of the solution? Think about different examples of people who may be discriminated against for whatever reason.

01:58 And how can you be a part of the solution for that.

02:02 We talked about anti-racism.

02:05 Now, I'm going to talk about racism.

02:07 And guess what a lot of these terms that I talked about, will be included in each of these definitions a part of it.

02:15 So racism, part of it is prejudice.

02:19 Part of it is discrimination. Part of it is antagonism.

02:22 It's all directed toward a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group.

02:30 And typically is groups that are minority or marginalized.

02:34 And so we have all these negative behaviors and actions and stereotyping and labels and oppressing people, limiting people from the ability to achieve those higher levels of what we consider success in our society.

02:49 And it is a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits.

02:55 So we also want to point out that race, which is when derivative of racism, how racism happened because of race.

03:04 Race is a social construct. It's not based on biology.

03:08 And people hate to hear that and we still use race, because it's been assigned to us and has been a part of our existence, right.

03:15 So we do want to in the space of healthcare, make sure that we completely understand that people are humans.

03:22 And although certain races people are more prone to certain diseases.

03:28 it's not necessarily because of race or skin tone, it has more to do with biology and genetics.

03:34 It also has to do with when we think about those social determinants of health, that is more of the reason why people within certain racial groups have higher morbidity and mortality and are more prone to certain diseases.

03:51 Nothing to do with the color of their skin though, in reality in the big scheme of things.

03:55 So that's important to remember.

03:58 So also why we're changing the language oftentimes, when you see us write test questions.

04:04 We don't necessarily need to include race, because race doesn't have anything to do with the disease process.

04:10 In terms of treatment, though, I may need to think about race because of what I just said.

04:15 the higher morbidity, mortality, and the reaction to certain treatments, right, the effectiveness of certain treatments within certain groups, but it doesn't necessarily biologically have anything to do with race.

04:29 So it's just a way to help us to understand that this group of people is more susceptible to this.

04:35 And when we think about that, that doesn't just mean about African American or black people.

04:40 When we think about osteoporosis, who does it affect most? Older white women, right? So, I may have to say that in that case, but again, it doesn't have anything to do with biology.

04:52 We just see that it shows up more in this group of people, and it's more of a descriptor is what I want you to focus on.