[ad_1]
In 2017, again working for a well-known media company, I took a vacation to my home country, Nigeria. When I came out, my hair was smooth and smooth. When I got back, I had long braids. “Oh, god, me love that! ”A white woman told me in the pantry as I entered without my permission. Another, wide-eyed, asked, “How long does it take them? It’s great! ”And I invaded to inspect my space. Apparently, not a single woman considered her actions culturally sensitive, which is one of the barriers that people of color face in the workplace. We learn to keep smiling and moving in those uncomfortable moments.
Companies have not been able to deal with such meetings for a long time. Instead, they rely on it one size diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training – memorable slide presentations, sad videos and dark certificates to sign at the end. These programs are usually common unforgettable, not having an assessable impact, and, research shows, effective. After the death of George Floyd last summer sparked national outrage, corporate America was tougher on those superficial solutions. Businesses were moving fast ordered inclusive work environment, social media pages full of black and brown faces, alliance elevated and socially distanced the council in the race.
Lately, however, some major corporations are trying something new: virtual reality. What happens, VR creators say, is that instead of slides on the impact of unconscious bias, corporations can have employees experience discrimination themselves? By focusing people’s perspectives on color in digital simulations, technology companies say they can help companies become fairer and more responsive and better measure DEI commitments.
This approach is a step forward from the PowerPoint cover caricatures. But these problems are deeper than inadequate training in inclusivity, and more than advanced technology will need to be addressed. A virtual world can’t teach whites in America to see what they don’t want to see real world; to see that blacks exist outside of racial stereotypes and acts of savagery against us.
Virtual reality a tool to increase racial understanding is not new. Like technology startups and established companies Debias VR, Lookout, The most eye-catching I am a man, and Google: Immerse yourself in VR Racial identity have examined the potential of simulations to promote racial empathy. Yet humanity, measured by growth hate crimes, is no less racist.
2020 a report According to International Data Corporation, the demand for virtual reality experiences is growing, and sales of VR headsets are projected to grow by 48 percent annually over the next four years. Combined with the increased awareness of American corporations about DEI’s shortcomings, they make it a great time for technology companies to try again; it’s a good business.
Internship laboratoriesFor example, it is a new platform based on virtual reality that allows users to acquire identities of different racial and gender backgrounds. After beta testing with Zoom, Amazon, Google, Uber and Target, it was officially launched in February. The founders — Elise Smith, a black woman, and Heather Shen, a first-generation Chinese woman — say Main experiences DEI training program it is an immersive solution that will close the gaps learned.
“The immersive nature of praxis is learning to empathize” in a practical way, Shen tells me. “We’re not giving that moment,‘ Okay, you’ve had an immersive experience. ’In his VR world, employees put on headphones, they take in the form of someone else—A woman in a hijab or a Sikh man with a pagri-headed breast, for example — or acts as a spectator in a particular setting where he is observing a reflection of a part of the experience, and so on. virtual mirror. They interact and respond loudly to other avatars. Finally, an assessment is needed that requires the employee to reflect on what they have just experienced, as over time the reflections will show a more empathic user.
Courtney Cogburn, A social scientist and professor of social work at Columbia University who was consulted in the experiment by Shen and Smith, is more skeptical of this view. “For me the question mark is,‘ Is racial empathy possible? ’” He says. “I don’t think you have to understand what it feels like to be an extreme person on that stick to see, evaluate, and disagree with that.”
[ad_2]
Source link
