W. Kamau Bell and Melissa Hudson Bell at the community forum on race held at Willard Middle School in Berkeley on Friday March 13, 2015. Photo: Pete Rosos
At a community forum held in the wake of a well-publicized accusation of racism at a Berkeley café, a new initiative was announced to help train local businesses in handling implicit bias.
An estimated 300 people turned up to Willard Middle School Friday night to take part in the public discussion prompted by the incident which happened when comedian W. Kamau Bell and his wife, Melissa Hudson Bell, were at the Elmwood Café on Jan. 26 this year.
The comedian, who is African-American, made public on his blog how he was asked to leave the café on College Avenue while he was talking to his wife and her friends, who are all white, at an outdoor table.
After he read Bell’s blog post, Michael Pearce, the owner of the Elmwood Café and a social justice activist, reached out to the Bells and they agreed a public conversation would be a way to turn a negative experience into a teaching opportunity. Their goal was to achieve a broader understanding of racial issues, in particular the implicit bias that can explain micro-aggressions inflicted on people of color.(...)
Read the rest of At community forum in Berkeley, W. Kamau Bell and Elmwood Café launch ‘implicit bias’ training initiative (1,711 words)
By Tracey Taylor. |
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Post tags: ACLU-Northern California, Berkeley Alliance, Berkeley High Black Student Union, Elmwood Cafe, Implicit bias, Jamie Almanzán, Kadijah Means, Melissa Hudson Bell, michael pearce, Nikki Jones, Novella Coleman, Pamela Harrison-Small, racism, The Equity Collaborative, W. Kamau Bell, Willard Middle School
