José, Joe, and the Unconscious Bias in Between

This Buzzfeed article has been trending for a while, and I've felt the need to share it since the first time I came across it. José's story is as shocking as it is tragic.  Most importantly, it is representative of the unconscious bias that many of us have. 

It is unlikely that each one of the hundreds of employers José contacted consciously decided not to hire him because he had a Hispanic name. Scenarios like this happen all the time due to an unconscious bias perpetuated by the stereotypes associated with members of each race. John, Joe, or George are perceived as more professional than Juan, José, or Jorge because employers often associate ethnic names with the stigma of an ethnicity. In José's case, he was assumed to be a migrant worker, and immediately dismissed. Bias, whether conscious or unconscious, hurts people all the same. It's important to be aware of the different kinds of bias so that we can try to identify them in ourselves and others, and then fix the problem from there.