Is Bias Fixable?

Everyone is biased, as research consistently proves. Yet more often than not, I hear people saying "I'm color blind" or "This place is a meritocracy," when all modern reality would suggest it can't be. Nate Silver recently shared research affirming that "those who say they don't have a gender bias actually show a greater gender bias." So maybe it's more this: saying that you aren't biased probably makes you more blind than color-blind. Because only when you acknowledge that you are blind to an issue, can you begin the process of seeing more clearly.

But here's the good news: a world that has been conceived and framed is also a world that can also be reconceived and reframed. This alone is powerful. If you believe that bias is simply an accumulation of culturally accepted norms, then you can recognize your power in shifting those norms.

One of my favorite stories about this is a relatively unknown historical example. Marilyn Monroe changed Ella Fitzgerald's career. In the mid-1950s when blacks had a hard enough time getting gigs, and women even more so, Marilyn Monroe lobbied the owner of the famed Mocambo club to book Ella Fitzgerald, promising to take a front table every night if he did. The owner said yes, and Monroe delivered: front table, every night. The press went overboard to cover these evenings, and with that visibility, Fitzgerald got the opportunity to be seen. 

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/08/is_bias_fixable.html