What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us
By Brother Rogers
Race is in the news again. The brouhaha surrounding the white Cambridge police officer arresting a black Harvard professor in his own home, and the President’s comments on the matter, have started a conversation on race.
In the aftermath of the incident, an AP story led with this sentence, “A Boston police officer who sent a mass e-mail referring to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. as a ‘banana-eating jungle monkey’ has apologized, saying he’s not a racist.” “You might be,” I thought, “but you might not know it.”
Our problem today is not one of people using the N-word and willfully discriminating against black people. This is not the 1950s when Jim Crow was the unquestioned cultural norm. It’s not even the 1980s, when affirmative action was necessary to overcome white resistance to black upward mobility. Our problem today is that we act on false assumptions that we don’t even know we have. Call them blind spots.
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology just published a new study from researchers at the University of Washington that showed 70 percent of those who took something called the Implicit Association Test (IAT) have an unconscious preference for white people over black people. The results showed that even some nonwhites displayed this preference.
It comes as no surprise that we are influenced by the stereotypes prevalent in our culture. We don’t find it hard to believe that Asians are good at math, blondes are ditzy, white nerds are good with computers or that blacks…well, fill in the blank with your own stereotype here.
The truth is we are all racists at some level. In other words, we all make inferences and assumptions about others based on stereotypes. Our mental tapes were pre-programmed in childhood, and it is easier to replay those tapes in our minds than it is to recognize our own unconscious biases. Most of us are more comfortable with those who look like us than with other people who look different.
How does this affect race relations in a place like Mississippi? First, it verifies what the local Race Relations Team reported as its key finding in the 1990s. That group concluded, “Racial inequality impedes social and economic development in Oktibbeha County because many citizens are not educated about racism and its effects.” In short, what we don’t know can hurt us. Like the emailing Boston policeman, we may not know that we harbor unconscious negative feelings about African-Americans.
According to the lead researcher of the study cited above, “When you are unaware of attitudes or stereotypes, they can unintentionally affect your behavior. Awareness can help to overcome this unwanted influence.”
This brings us back to the imbroglio between the professor and the police officer. Perhaps the professor made false assumptions about white police officers using racial profiling that affected his behavior. Likewise, possibly the policeman had an unconscious bias against blacks or arrogant Harvard professors or both that affected his behavior.
President Obama called this a teachable moment. Not necessarily. The easiest way to view this racial incident is through our preexisting prism that led us to make a snap judgment in favor of either the policeman or the professor. Where you stand depends on where you sit.
The challenge for all of us is to be thoughtful and reflective, as both the policeman and the professor were when they shared a beer at the White House. What we don’t know about our own unconscious biases can hurt us and our community. Discovering our own blind spots, as they did, would truly make this a teachable moment.
Brother Rogers works at the Stennis Center for Public Service and is a guest columnist for the Starkville Daily News.
Race is in the news again. The brouhaha surrounding the white Cambridge police officer arresting a black Harvard professor in his own home, and the President’s comments on the matter, have started a conversation on race.
In the aftermath of the incident, an AP story led with this sentence, “A Boston police officer who sent a mass e-mail referring to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. as a ‘banana-eating jungle monkey’ has apologized, saying he’s not a racist.” “You might be,” I thought, “but you might not know it.”
Our problem today is not one of people using the N-word and willfully discriminating against black people. This is not the 1950s when Jim Crow was the unquestioned cultural norm. It’s not even the 1980s, when affirmative action was necessary to overcome white resistance to black upward mobility. Our problem today is that we act on false assumptions that we don’t even know we have. Call them blind spots.
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology just published a new study from researchers at the University of Washington that showed 70 percent of those who took something called the Implicit Association Test (IAT) have an unconscious preference for white people over black people. The results showed that even some nonwhites displayed this preference.
It comes as no surprise that we are influenced by the stereotypes prevalent in our culture. We don’t find it hard to believe that Asians are good at math, blondes are ditzy, white nerds are good with computers or that blacks…well, fill in the blank with your own stereotype here.
The truth is we are all racists at some level. In other words, we all make inferences and assumptions about others based on stereotypes. Our mental tapes were pre-programmed in childhood, and it is easier to replay those tapes in our minds than it is to recognize our own unconscious biases. Most of us are more comfortable with those who look like us than with other people who look different.
How does this affect race relations in a place like Mississippi? First, it verifies what the local Race Relations Team reported as its key finding in the 1990s. That group concluded, “Racial inequality impedes social and economic development in Oktibbeha County because many citizens are not educated about racism and its effects.” In short, what we don’t know can hurt us. Like the emailing Boston policeman, we may not know that we harbor unconscious negative feelings about African-Americans.
According to the lead researcher of the study cited above, “When you are unaware of attitudes or stereotypes, they can unintentionally affect your behavior. Awareness can help to overcome this unwanted influence.”
This brings us back to the imbroglio between the professor and the police officer. Perhaps the professor made false assumptions about white police officers using racial profiling that affected his behavior. Likewise, possibly the policeman had an unconscious bias against blacks or arrogant Harvard professors or both that affected his behavior.
President Obama called this a teachable moment. Not necessarily. The easiest way to view this racial incident is through our preexisting prism that led us to make a snap judgment in favor of either the policeman or the professor. Where you stand depends on where you sit.
The challenge for all of us is to be thoughtful and reflective, as both the policeman and the professor were when they shared a beer at the White House. What we don’t know about our own unconscious biases can hurt us and our community. Discovering our own blind spots, as they did, would truly make this a teachable moment.
Brother Rogers works at the Stennis Center for Public Service and is a guest columnist for the Starkville Daily News.