was towards the Middle East.

I identify as transgender, non-conforming.

It's not often assumed that I am part black.

Do you think that being gay is a choice?

I can't be sure.

Who should police the police?

The citizens.

That actually scares me.

If I had to have a conversation

with my kids about this,

I wouldn't know pretty much where to start.

How I treat and talk to my children

is very much reflective

of the environment that they walk into every day.

I'm a lawyer by trade.

- I better watch what I say. - (chuckles)

I've been a cop for 20 years.

We must understand that how we've been weaponized,

you know, against the black community.

Hello, everybody, my name is Jesse Williams.

I want to welcome everyone joining us today

as we discuss bias, conscious and unconscious bias

and its impact on us personally and the collective.

I am here now because I feel like

we're experiencing a real opportunity.

The real opportunity is in the public consciousness

with all that's happening in the world and in our nation.

We are primed, I think, to accept the possibility

that maybe we have some room for improvement.

Maybe there are some things

that we can learn about ourselves and each other

that will allow us to grow forward.

So part of that is acknowledging conscious

and unconscious bias,

the roles that we might be playing

in this whole equation.

I think it's incredibly important for us

to face it, talk about it, be open to that possibly.

Everyone has bias, myself included.

It is a real issue and it's something that we can address

and just learn more about.

It doesn't make anybody inherently wrong.

It's something that's worthy of exploring.

So over the next few hours we're going to do just that.

We're going to watch a series of conversations

between complete strangers meeting for the first time,

and they're going to discuss not only themselves,

but issues that bring up

the concept of bias in their lives.

This might be uncomfortable at times.

It certainly has moments of discomfort for them.

It might for you as well.

Feelings could be hurt.

But that's part of the process.

That's how growth happens.

So amidst that discomfort,

these are all opportunities for learning for us.

So before we dive deeper,

I do want to acknowledge how we've come here today,

that can't do that without thanking Procter & Gamble

for spreading the word and spearheading this effort.

That also includes BuzzFeed,

who's allowing us to use their platform,

so thank you so much.

For years P&G has been using their voice

and acting as a leading advertiser

to shine a light on inequality,

highlighting bias in particular

with their recent work in the last couple of years

and sparking a dialogue to promote understanding,

to promote action.

So I'm not going to do this alone.

We are going to dial up the incredible Freddie Ransome,

who is a content creator,

has a lot of insight around bias,

and she's going to help us

walk through this whole experience

and be a great asset to us today.

Hey, Jesse, how are you?

I'm great, how are you?

I'm good.

I'm excited for what today's going to hold.

Just to give everyone a little bit more detail

about the ins and outs of this experiment,

we've paired 14 strangers together to talk about bias.

And these are real people,

they are here because they want to have dialog

and they want to experience some personal growth.

So please be respectful to them in the comments,

even if you don't agree on what they're saying

because we're all friends here,

we're all just here to learn and take in new information

or just sort of spread light and share light to each other

in regards to experiences and personal biases.

It's interesting when talking to new people or strangers,

I think folks can relate

to being at a party or a new gathering,

you just find yourself kind of pouring your heart out

to somebody you just met.

I think the idea that won't definitely follow you

in your social circle or your family events,

you've got a little bit of freedom

to just kind of unload something,

to explore something, experiment,

play around with ideas

without it being kind of attached to you

like this static cling

and you're going to have to be accountable for it later.

We all carry with us learned assumptions, presumptions,

we all are a byproduct of media

and marketing and information

and cartoons and commercials.

Also, now is a good time just to let folks know

it's not only Freddie and myself participating today.

We are really lucky

to have an absolutely brilliant professor,

Dr. Charisse L'Pree,

sharing her incredible talents and wherewithal.

Professional L'Pree is at Syracuse University

where she currently focuses on how the media affects

the way we think about ourselves,

exactly what we're talking about,

our perceptions of ourselves and others.

We've been working with her

to bring an added layer of context

and facts into this discussion,

those pesky things that are necessary.

Beyond just watching, we're going to be posting

discussion prompts in the comments,

so pay attention to those if you could.

This allows us all to be able to join the conversation

from an informed perspective.

So be sure to add your thoughts

and questions there as well.

This is a safe space, so please

don't succumb to any habits.

We've all been in comment sections

and we can see how it can get childish and ugly quickly.

Let's elevate today, let's make that a safe space

so we can constructive conversations.

And now, while we have paired strangers together,

they're not entirely random.

We intentionally went about this in a curated fashion

to encourage discourse beyond their echo chamber.

These have been really expansive,

long conversations

when we've paired these strangers together,

so we've naturally had to edit them down for time.

We did that in the most responsible way.

So in order to catalyze these conversations,

we have passed along P&G's award-winning short film

called The Look to all of these pairings

so that they can watch it together

and it can be a great way to spark conversation about bias.

Let's start with our first pairing.

We have Chozy joining us from Atlanta, Georgia,

and we have Lynn in North Carolina.

So we have them dialed up and meeting each other

for the very first time for an interesting conversation.

All right, let's do it.

Hello.

Hi.

How 'ya doing?

Well, I'm well today and yourself?

I'm going great, just excited about this experience.

Isn't this something?

My name's Lynn.

Lynn?

Lynn.

Hi, my name is Chozy.

Oh come on, no.

[sighs]

Um, I can definitely relate to the beginning,

getting the weird looks for looking different.

I can't believe this stuff

still happens and I know it does

and I cannot understand why.

[sighs]

Yeah.

We still judge each other on the way we immediately appear.

Where do you think that comes from?

The reason I think a lot of people think that way,

which is not only in the U.S., it's a global thing,

is just lack of interaction

with people that are different than you.

I am originally from East Jerusalem, Palestine,

and I came here in 2001, three weeks before September 11.

So, when I came here I was saying, "I'm Middle Eastern,

I'm Palestinian, I'm Muslim," and it is just who I am.

I didn't think anything of it.

So September 11 happens

and all of a sudden there is this hate

for anybody that looks Middle Eastern.

So if you're brown, you're going to be a target.

It doesn't matter if you're Arab, Indian, Hispanic,

mixed black and white, just dark featured,

and a lot of people got

harassed and attacked on campus

at Georgia Southern.

And I was like I'm not going to go out and say

that I'm Middle Eastern.

I'm going to have to dodge it, lie it, try to be a chameleon.

But it's hard to be a chameleon

when the majority is black and white

and nobody looks like me.

What I'm hearing you say is

that it comes from non-exposure

to different types of people

and they're visually different

and we have to judge immediately.

The one kind of group that you can see my ignorance,

I think when I thought about biases towards people,

the one thing I would have an immediate bias

was towards whatever I would call;

and you're right, it's ignorance, the Middle East.

Because it's different and so, as we've had more immigrants

and as I've been able to meet more people,

you see, my views change.

And this is the only way

that we can break down these conclusions.

It's kind of embarrassing here

to admit that I've had these biases.

It's embarrassing.

But I have not really been able

to interact very much with people like yourself, Chozy,

so I don't know how the universe knew

that you're the person I probably needed

to talk most to.

Yeah.

I've been in churches here when I came to the U.S.

and I've been to Baptist churches.

And I'm looking around and I see

this poster of a white person

that looks like Kurt Cobain from Nirvana

with blonde hair, blue eyes, on a cross.

And I'm like, "Who is that?"

And he's like, "This is Jesus."

And I'm like, "What?!"

Jesus is from Bethlehem.

Jesus was a Jewish person from Bethlehem in Palestine.

If you go to Palestine right now,

nobody's blonde hair, blue eyes.

I'm considered light-skinned.

People are a little bit darker than me.

Yeah.

I don't care what the Census says that we are.

I'm not treated like I'm a white

person when I come to America.

I'm accepted by blacks more than whites.

Where I grew up in Northern California,

there was a lot of dissension with black people.

We didn't even have anybody from Palestine or Jerusalem.

We didn't have Jewish people.

And I drove through the part of town that was black

and because I was white, they threw a rock at me

because they were angry.

And that was when integration was starting

and they would bring black children and white people

and white children together.