Deconstructing Bias in Structures

🕯 What If the Policy Was the Spell?

Last week, you spiralled a system.
You cracked open a structure that no longer served, and—ritual by ritual—you began rewriting its logic.

But something lingers.

Beneath every system lies a code.
And beneath that code lives a story.
A story that’s been rehearsed for so long it no longer feels like bias—it feels like reality.

“We treat everyone the same.”
“It’s just how the process works.”
“It’s fair because it’s standard.”

These aren’t truths.
They’re default spells.
Spells cast by systems designed for a narrow slice of the population—and enforced through form, tone, timing, and “professionalism.”

So this week, we ask not just how to change a system…
…but how to see the bias it’s been hiding all along.

🧠 Bias Isn’t Just in People. It’s in Protocols.

Let’s be honest.
You already know bias exists.

You’ve felt it in rooms where your tone was policed while others got praised for “passion.”
You’ve heard it when trauma became a reason for exclusion, not deeper care.
You’ve lived it—when the system moved easily for some… and made you jump through burning hoops.

But the most dangerous bias?
It’s not personal. It’s procedural.

It lives in things like:

• 10-page application forms with no breaks
  

• “Cultural fit” interviews that code white middle-class norms as “team energy”
  

• Mental health assessments that assume English fluency, linear logic, and emotional containment
  

• HR procedures that require formality over repair
  

• Procurement policies that demand fixed invoices before flexible healing has occurred
  

These aren’t mistakes.
They are systems performing bias through ritual.

And if we don’t see it—we become it.

📂 Case Study: “We Want Diverse Practitioners, But…”

Let me share something that happened not long ago.

A London-based mental health organisation approached me about running a workshop series.
Their aim? “We want to diversify our team. We’re ready to have the harder conversations.”

They loved my frameworks.
They loved the Power Pyramid™.
They said the Spiral Loop of Liberation™ “completely redefined their idea of inclusion.”

I delivered two sessions.
Feedback was off the charts.
Practitioners stayed back after. Directors cried.

And then…

Nothing.

No follow-up email.
No payment.
No contract finalised.

I followed up once. Twice. Gently.

Then a third time, more directly.
“We’re still finalising internal workflows,” they said.
“We’ll get back to you soon.”

49 days passed.

I had redesigned their internal lens.
But I was now chasing an external system still performing its original ritual:

Extract insight from the margins. Then disappear.

And this is what I want to say:

The harm wasn’t in the overt.
It was in the structure.
A system built to receive transformation—without ever being accountable to it.

Bias wasn’t a person.
It was the process itself.

🛠️ Enter: The Bias Detection Tool™

This week’s free download isn’t a theory sheet.
It’s a ritual diagnostic for your real-world systems.

Because redesigning without detection is just decoration.

This tool guides you to spot:

• 🧩 Where bias hides in your forms, policies, outreach, recruitment, therapy flows, and collaboration invites
  

• 🕸️ How “neutral” language codes bias into professionalism, “fit,” and “quality”
  

• 🔁 Where decision points are rigged in favour of the institution, not the individual
  

• 🔎 Which rituals (timing, language, access points) perform exclusion through structure—not intent
  

📥 [Download the Bias Detection Tool™ (Interactive PDF)]

It includes:

• The Visibility & Voice Scan™
  
  

• The Neutrality Myth Tracker™
  
  

• The Decision Point Disruption Map™
  
  

• The Bias Composting Prompts™
  
  

Use it to run a spiral audit on anything: from how you hire, to how you write newsletters, to how your clients enter your space.

🔁 From Spiral Redesign (Week 5) to Systemic Honesty (Week 6)

Last week, you redesigned a system.
This week, we ask:

What internalised biases were you redesigning without even knowing it?

Because systems don’t start with harm.
They start with beliefs.

Beliefs about what counts. Who belongs. What professionalism looks like.
And most importantly—who gets to define it.

Take this example from a client who redesigned her therapy intake form using last week’s Spiral Tool:

Before:

• Title: “Mental Health Intake”
  

• Sections: Demographics → Symptoms → Medical History
  

• No questions about cultural context, community resources, language needs, or historic trauma
  

After running the Bias Detection Tool™, she composted the form.

Now:

• Section titles are conversational: “Where You Come From,” “How You’ve Survived,” “What You Want to Change”
  

• Identity fields include body neutrality, neurotype, faith/spirituality, migration status, carer roles
  

• Emotional safety check: “Anything I should avoid asking about right now?”
  

That’s not just inclusive.

That’s ritual redesign.

And bias composting at its most precise.

⚖️ The 7 Rituals That Hide Harm

Bias survives not because we don’t care.
It survives because it’s been hidden in what we’ve normalised.

Let’s call it what it is.

We must pierce these rituals.

Not with shame.
But with systemic awareness and spiral care.

🌀 How to Use This Tool in Practice

Here’s how I recommend you begin:

1. Choose One System
   Pick a structure you’re connected to—something you’ve built, lead, or inherited.
   

Example:

• Your client onboarding
  

• Your institutional procurement process
  

• Your group coaching eligibility criteria
  

• Your workshop sign-up flow
  

• Your grant application review
  

2. Run the Bias Detection Tool™
   Use all five sections. Don’t rush it. Make it sacred. Treat it like a spiral reflection.
   

3. Name the Biases
   Not to shame them—but to unmask the unconscious spells.
   

4. Compost & Recode
   Use the Bias Composting Prompts™ to begin writing the new ritual. Ask:
   

• What do I believe now that I see this?
  

• What needs to be rewritten—who for, and how?
  

5. Anchor It in Spiral Culture
   Make one visible change. Don’t wait for perfection. Make it participatory.
   Bias composting is a form of collective healing.
   

📞 Want Help Composting Bias in Your Systems?

This week’s topic is potent.
And I know for some of you—it’s overwhelming.

Maybe you’ve found bias in a process you thought was safe.
Maybe you’re holding space for others and don’t know where to start.
Maybe you want to lead systemic change with rigour, but need backup.

Here’s how I can support:

• 🤝 Book an Initial ICC Consultation with Me (1:1 deep system support)
  → https://meetings.hubspot.com/jarell-bempong/initial-icc-consultation-with-jarell-bempong
  
  

• 🤝 Let’s Talk Collaboration / Institutional Partnerships
  → https://meetings.hubspot.com/jarell-bempong/lets-talk-networking-collaboration
  
  

Bias composting doesn’t have to be lonely.
We spiral together.

🧾 Case Study: The "Community Grant" That Wasn’t for Community

A grassroots cultural organiser reached out.
They were applying for a London-based "equity grant" meant for marginalised creatives.

It seemed promising—until we used the Bias Detection Tool™ together.

Here’s what we uncovered:

• 📋 Application Length: 3,500 words, excluding portfolio uploads
  

• 🔐 Submission Window: 7 days, no flexibility, launched during Ramadan
  

• 📡 Language Used: “Demonstrate impact,” “Scalability,” “Return on investment”—terms drawn from business, not care
  

• 📉 Scoring Rubric: 0 points allocated for lived experience, community trauma, or multilingual programming
  

The grant wasn’t built for community.

It was built for institutions that could mimic grassroots language while still protecting elite performance metrics.

This is how bias hides:

• It borrows the words of equity.
  

• It uses the aesthetics of inclusion.
  

• It rewards those fluent in its dialect, not those living at the margins.
  

We composted that grant ritual:

→ Translated the portfolio into visual storytelling
→ Reframed “ROI” to mean Return On Intimacy™
→ Named lived experience as strategic foresight
→ Created a trauma-informed timeline and resubmission protocol for future applicants

They didn’t just apply—they rewrote what “excellence” meant on the application’s terms.

That’s ritual refusal.
That’s system spiral redesign.

🧠 The Bias Is Never Just About You. It’s About the Loop.

One of the most painful effects of systemic bias?

It makes you doubt your own clarity.

The therapist who starts wondering if her tone is too strong.
The coach who begins to apologise for being “too much.”
The funder who starts questioning if their ancestral framework is “not strategic enough.”

But let me tell you something:

The system gaslights. The spiral restores.

This is where the Spiral Loop of Liberation™ comes back in:

• The bias you internalised (e.g. “I’m too emotional”)
  

• Becomes a belief you rehearse (e.g. “I need to tone it down to be taken seriously”)
  

• Which gets performed through systems you build (e.g. “We need to screen for team fit”)
  

• And then reinforces the bias—in yourself, and in others
  

That’s the loop.

But here’s the shift:
When you compost the bias in the system, you often release it from your body too.

Because this isn’t just procedural healing.
It’s personal.

🌀 Ritual Prompt: Bias as a Mirror, Not a Mistake

Take 20 minutes.
Choose one process you’re involved in.
Ask it Spiral Questions:

• What belief was this process built to protect?
  

• Who would struggle most to complete this task—and why?
  

• What aspect of my own identity feels stretched, silenced, or shrunk by this structure?
  

• If this system was a mirror, what would it reveal about who we centre? Who we serve?
  

Now write one ritual refusal.
A boundary. A change. A refusal to replicate the script.

Then spiral it into practice.

✊🏾 When Bias Is Named, Power Begins to Shift

Let me tell you what happens when institutions actually deconstruct bias in structure.

🧠 One client removed the requirement to submit PDFs in size 12 Times New Roman and instead allowed voice notes and images.
→ Their pool of applications from disabled and neurodivergent creatives increased by 230%.

🧠 Another organisation rewrote its community code of conduct after realising it policed trauma expression in marginalised groups more than it protected psychological safety.
→ They introduced Ritual Conflict Navigation™, co-designed with lived experience experts.

🧠 A London university I consulted with rewrote their senior leader onboarding pack to include the Power Pyramid™, so incoming directors had to map their own systemic positioning before influencing strategy.
→ Bias awareness became embedded, not optional.

In each case, the spiral of bias detection was a portal to redistribution.

Bias was no longer treated as awkward.
It was treated as sacred.
Because it revealed the energy signature of the system itself.

🧭 Spiral Guidance for Leaders and Healers

For leaders, therapists, coaches, facilitators, or DEI professionals:
Bias composting is not a checkbox.
It’s a living ritual you must revisit.

Ask yourself weekly:

• Where is my default protecting familiarity over fairness?
  

• Where are my forms, workshops, or decisions rehearsing exclusion without my consent?
  

• Where have I mistaken fluency, polish, or calm for trustworthiness?
  

And when you find the answers—don’t rush to “fix.”
Spiral them.
Breathe.
Let discomfort become the mirror.

You’re not bad.
You’re inside a system.
And now you’re spiralling it open.

🔮 From Structural Bias to Identity Power (Preview of Week 7)

Next week, we move from dismantling what isn’t ours…
…to reclaiming what has always been within us.

Because once you detect bias in the system—
You begin to notice how often that same bias taught you to shrink, split, or disappear.

That’s why Week 7 is called: Embracing the Power of Intersectional Identity.

We’ll ask:

What if every part of your identity that was once used against you…
 …is now the exact map for your leadership?

We’ll walk through the Intersectional Power Mapping Tool™, and you’ll see:

• How your visibility, risk, and brilliance intersect in real time
  

• Why your lived experience is not extra—it’s edgework
  
  

• How to build systems that don’t just include you—they emerge from you
  

But first—bias must be named.

And you’ve done that this week.

So pause.
Breathe.
And know: you’ve already begun the ritual of redesign.

🔗 Spiral Forward

🌀 Download this week’s Bias Detection Tool™ → [Interactive PDF]

📞 Book a 1:1 System Spiral Consultation
→ https://meetings.hubspot.com/jarell-bempong/initial-icc-consultation-with-jarell-bempong

🤝 Explore Collaboration or Institutional Work
→ https://meetings.hubspot.com/jarell-bempong/lets-talk-networking-collaboration

📬 Or just subscribe for next week’s drop:
→ The Intersect Newsletter on LinkedIn

✍🏾 Final Words

The most dangerous bias is the one we call “normal.”
But the most powerful healing is the one that comes from spiralling it.

Spiral well.
Spiral with intention.
Spiral like the system was waiting for you to remember yourself.

—
Jarell