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We cannot help but be shaped by our background, cultural environment and personal experiences. Whilst it is inevitable that unconscious bias exits the important thing is to be aware of our inner prejudices. Mediation provides a perfect forum within which parties can speak openly and confidentially about their feelings and allows for that all important self-learning and awareness around our own prejudices and assumptions.
One case where the issue of unconscious bias and more particularly, white privilege, was raised within a mediation, was a case between a white British lady and one of her peers; who was from a BME background. Interestingly, both parties acknowledged that there were instances of which they were both aware, within the organisation in which they worked, where such bias towards white people existed.
The issue for the white British lady was that the organisation had placed her in charge of leading on a particular project which had previously been run by the lady from the BME background and all of the people involved on the project were also from a BME background. The white British lady felt that she was being discriminated against because she was white and not from a BME background and that she was not being given credit for the skills / experience that she had to be able to run / deliver the project.
Both parties were able to talk openly about the issues in the joint mediation session that ensued and were able to address misunderstandings and assumptions that had been made by both parties. The lady from the BME background acknowledged the skills and expertise that the white British lady brought to the project. The lady from the BME background explained that the use of certain language towards women (in her culture) had negative connotations of which the white British lady was unaware.
An agreement was reached as to how they would work together going forwards in the delivery of the project.
The case highlights the benefit that mediation offers in addressing misunderstandings that arise as a result of our different cultures and experiences; something that formal processes are unlikely to be able to do.