Unlearning Unconscious Bias

Salons at Stowe

Unlearning Unconscious Bias

April 16, 2015

This Salon explored unconscious or implicit bias, in particular its impact on the criminal justice system. Featured guests Maureen Price-Boreland, Executive Director of Community Partners in Action and Andrew Clark, Director of Central Connecticut State University’s Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy, led the conversation.

We all hold biases and make snap judgments on race, gender, sexuality, appearance etc. based on what we have learned from the media, school, and those around us. For those in law enforcement, and for those at the receiving end of law enforcement practices, these biases can have negative and even deadly impacts. One example of implicit bias is the way black men are perceived as being “dangerous” despite the evidence that they commit no more crime than white people. This bias contributes to the over policing of certain communities and racial profiling. Price-Boreland emphasized that implicit bias does not cause racism, but rather that racism causes biases and it requires open conversation and self reflection to eradicate the effects.

Inspiration to Action

Understand unconscious and implicit bias
Talk openly and courageously about implicit bias
Work to recognize the ways in which you hold biases
Discuss privilege and how it impacts who gets punished for a crime and who doesn’t

Location Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

Doors Open 5 - 7 PM

Program 5 - 7 PM

School Group Interest Form

School Group Interest Form 2024

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Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker (1822-1907)
An ardent member of the woman’s suffrage movement, Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker joined in the cause along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Isabella was the first child of Lyman Beecher and his second wife, Harriet Porter Beecher.

Isabella began her education at Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary and lived with her sister Mary Perkins. In 1841 she married John Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. John Hooker was a lawyer and an abolitionist.

In the early 1860s Isabella got involved in the woman’s suffrage movement. Isabella joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association. Isabella’s ideas of equality were influenced by John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty and the Subjection of Women.

In 1871, Isabella organized the annual convention of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Washington D.C. and presented her argument before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Her husband, John Hooker, believed in his wife and supported her activities. He helped Isabella draft a bill to the Connecticut Legislature giving married women the same property rights as their husbands. The bill passed in 1877. Isabella annually submitted a bill granting women the right to vote, but it did not pass in her lifetime.