Randall Cloke

3 February 2017
EDU 704
Implicit Biases Reflection

Having completed three of the Implicit Biases tests offered by Harvard, I am not terribly

surprised by the outcome of them when considered together or individually. I am rather

encouraged by this, as I know that if that were not the case, I would immediately, as some have

done and some will do, question the instrument which has garnered the result in question. But

this can be avoided, so hopefully my thoughts surrounding my belief in their validity should be

clear.

The three Implicit Association Tests I completed were Race, which was completed in

class, Sexuality, and Weight. One could spend some time thinking about why they elected the

third, personally-decided option, but I am not sure that is something I will do for this assignment.

For the race test, I was, at first, somewhat surprised at my result, which was that I showed

a slight automatic preference for African-Americans over European Americans. But, as I thought

through the result a little more, I realized that the result itself, in concert with my experiences in

life, can help to explain how that came to be.

I grew up in an all-white family in an all-white town and spend most of my time growing

up in all-white schools. I also grew up in an all-white town with some questionable tendencies

toward non-white people, though this has not always come through in the most explicit of ways.

My white parents were either absent or poor at parenting. I think my experiences, both missing

and non-pleasant, has led to an implicit belief that white people are often bad. And, further,

growing up surrounded only by those who are white, and having bad experiences with white

people, further makes that so. Contact limited with African-Americans, I could not experience

such a phenomenon, nor the enforcement of it. Some people often act within the worldview that
“it is better to know the devil you do than the devil you don’t,” but I have not always believed

that to be the case for me, and I think that is largely driven by some of my experiences, and the

associations from those experiences come through in this test rather accurately.

For the Sexuality test, I am not at all surprised by my result, and I do believe that it is, in

fact, accurate. But, why do I think that is the case? Well, I thought about how this test may have

turned out had I taken it a few years ago, and I think it may have ended with a different result.

I am a gay man. I have known this for most of my life. I have known for a long time that

my identity was not one which was represented in a popular sense. What is different for me,

though, is that I recognized and believed to be true, for me, at an early age was that this

“difference” that separates me from most people with whom I have interacted (insofar as I know)

was not one that I was taught to be wrong or bad, but just different from. One of my guiding

principles as I have gotten further into adulthood is that difference is just different, not bad. It is

one of the things that has led me to this school and program and one which makes me think

about why things happen around me. It is this belief that often explains why I explain to people

bothered by my use of “weird” that there are two kinds of weird: weird different and weird bad,

and that most things, in my experience, are the former and not the latter.

But I also was not taught that to not be straight was bad. I did not grow up with anyone

near me who was, at least known to be, not straight. Did I hear slurs? Surely. Directed at me?

Can’t say so, except one time in a heated discussion with my uncle who I did not know knew that

was gay—I learned. That one hurt, but he apologized and has since, and asks about and validates

my identity these days. Other than that, the word gay was not used as a pejorative as a noun or an

adjective. I have also never fit into what I have come to understand current gay culture to be, and
so that lack of immersion that many gay and lesbian individuals have is not one that I desired or

felt necessary, which I think aids the result of this implicit association test.

The last test, the one which I elected to take, was the test on Weight. The result of this

test indicates that I have a moderate preference for thin people over fat people. After taking some

time to think about this, it is where my explicit bias does not match my implicit one, a new

realization compared to the other two tests that I took.

I am white, and gay, and fat, too. I was not always the third, but for a long time I have

been. Again, I considered my experiences and the culture in which I had become socialized. And

it makes sense that I have a moderate preference for thin people. My family, the people with

whom most of my formative experiences to this point in my life have largely taken place, are

almost all bigger, heavier people. As such, I assumed that, at least possibly, my result might be

the opposite as it turned out to be.

I started to think more, though, about how I had gotten to the weight at which I currently

find myself. As I have mentioned above, my experiences with my parents are all pretty much on

the negative end of the continuum of good and bad. We did not have a lot of money growing up,

and this would be my understanding for my life between birth and pre-teen years when I lived

with my mom (but not my father, who had been long absent). We did not have much food. I was

skinny and was fairly neglected. Going to school without lunch was a common occurrence.

Coming home there often would not be dinner. This was not an outlier of my childhood

experiences.

When I came to live with my grandparents around the age of 12, I ate more food. They

had it, and they had a lot of it. I liked food because it is good. Coupled with this new realization

and glut of choices that I had not had before, was a growing understanding of my traumatic
experiences that I had lived through. My consumption, and the ultimate large weight gain that it

would cause, was also partly aided by some coping issues that I had taken to help fill some voids.

And then, for years, I would hear about how I was unhealthy, had mad bad choices, and that I

would have characteristics that were bad because of my weight. Never much of a natural athlete,

my already middling performances got worse. Going out to play was not something I wanted to

do, and so social issues began to emerge. The groundwork was laid, I think, for my implicit

association result that I got in this test. While I have come to terms with my experiences and the

results they have had, and while I am well-aware of my capabilities and how they are not tied to

weight, I am nonetheless not surprised by the result of this test. I know that I do not explicitly,

actively think the way the test explains my implicit biases.

As for what these tests mean for actions that I need to take, I realize now that I need to

think more consciously about the actions I take, the words I say, and the thoughts I form. None

of us are without both implicit and explicit biases, and so I know that I need to remember that a

white person does not inherently mean something bad to me, even though my experiences have

aided me to think so unconsciously. I need to recognize that while I may not always have a bias

for or against either straight or gay people, future experiences can result in a potentially different

outcome on the test in the future. Knowing that these tests are fluid is important for my own

understanding of myself and others. I need to know that my own negative experiences that lead

me to have an implicit bias toward thin people does not mean I cannot explain how that result

came to be, nor does it mean I am exempt from trying to recognize, in the moment where such an

implicit bias can become explicit, that bias—I am responsible for catching and understanding my

potential moments for explicit bias, and I am responsible for the result of what happens when

they do, ultimately, skip through.

 To develop multicultural competencies more or more fully, I need to, as I outlined in the

above paragraph, be more conscious of the causes and the meaning behind my biases. I also need

to more fully recognize and implement into my decision-making processes the responsibility I

have for my biases when they influence what I do, say, or think.

I also, as I said before, truly value difference, and that between and among people it is

critical to my understanding of myself and others. I certainly do not believe difference to be

inherently bad, and that I will forever be on a journey of placing myself in a larger and larger

world about which I will always continue to learn. If I am to know myself as fully as I can, I

must, without question, better understand the experiences of other people and their worldviews

that result from those experiences. I will never know what it is like to be African-American or

straight or a bunch of other identities. What I do know is that I need to always understand the

experiences who identify differently than I do, and that I need to be an advocate for marginalized

groups, including the one in which one of my identities resides.