Summary of Robert Livingston's The Conversation

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 I was invited to conduct an antibias workshop with a department of employees located in Appalachia that was roughly 98 percent male, 99 percent White, and 100 percent rural. I was worried that the attendees would not relate to me, given our differences in background. But they ended up becoming very comfortable with me and called me Doc.

#2 The next day, the group was more somber as they discussed the answers they received the day before. Some were annoyed, while others were sheepish. But it was clear that facts had been absorbed and learning had taken place.

#3 The tension between the desire for greater equity and inclusion among some executives, and the perception among many employees and middle managers that there is no discrimination in the company, is common in most corporate diversity training sessions.

#4 There is a large segment of the White American population that believes that Whites are being discriminated against more than Blacks. And many believe that racism is a zero-sum game, meaning that the decrease in discrimination against Blacks means the increase in discrimination against Whites.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669379034

IRB Media

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Insights on Robert Livingston's The Conversation

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I was invited to conduct an antibias workshop with a department of employees located in Appalachia that was roughly 98 percent male, 99 percent White, and 100 percent rural. I was worried that the attendees would not relate to me, given our differences in background. But they ended up becoming very comfortable with me and called me Doc.

#2

The next day, the group was more somber as they discussed the answers they received the day before. Some were annoyed, while others were sheepish. But it was clear that facts had been absorbed and learning had taken place.

#3

The tension between the desire for greater equity and inclusion among some executives, and the perception among many employees and middle managers that there is no discrimination in the company, is common in most corporate diversity training sessions.

#4

There is a large segment of the White American population that believes that Whites are being discriminated against more than Blacks. And many believe that racism is a zero-sum game, meaning that the decrease in discrimination against Blacks means the increase in discrimination against Whites.

#5

The first step to solving any problem is recognizing it and agreeing on what it is. If someone has a serious illness, such as cancer, but doesn’t know it, how can they succeed in treating it.

#6

There is a lot of variability in White people’s beliefs about racism, and this is largely unexplained by age, gender, or education. It is largely explained by political ideology.

#7

The availability heuristic is a tendency to overweight information that is readily available in your mind when making decisions, judgments, or estimates. This can lead to biased conclusions.

#8

Anchoring bias is when we rely on an initial judgment or assumption to make a subsequent one. For example, if a friend tells you that she has just passed the ten-mile mark in a marathon, your initial judgment of how far she has run may be based on whether the anchor is the starting line or the finish line.

#9

People are not just computers that process data. They have emotions, desires, needs, and ambitions, which can create a whole new set of obstacles to perceiving the world in an accurate way.

#10

The biggest challenge