The New York Times reported on December 1 that even educated blacks may suffer racial discrimination in the job market. Although the article focuses on the job market, it just as easily could have been about the credit market, the housing market or any of the various other markets and institutions in our society. When these stories appear -- and it indeed is a good thing that they do appear -- there is always an element of surprise and a dearth of information on what, if anything, can or should be done as a result.
The revelations in the New York Times story are punctuated by the happy surprise that we have an African American in the White House. But together these two factors create dissonance and even confusion. How can it be that we have an African American president, yet even Yale black graduates still face discrimination? And what about all the progress we have made?
Some of this confusion would go away if we had a more sophisticated understanding of race. We mainly talk about race and racial discrimination in terms of explicit, conscious attitudes; in this domain there is much to suggest we have made progress. But this is far from the whole story. Race occupies many domains, not just what is in our explicit, conscious mind. There are two other important areas on which to focus. One is what is in our unconscious mind, also referred to as implicit mind. The second is the effect of our institutional and cultural interactions in our society.
There is a good deal of work in the field of mind science about out conscious and unconscious. By some account, only about 2% of our cognitive and emotional processes are conscious and that 2% is impacted by what is going on in the other 98%. Movements over the last 30 years have given us better ways to both understand and measure what is going on in the unconscious.
Any given employer, or landlord, might look at an African American candidate, refuse to hire her or rent to her, and honestly say that race was not a consideration. But that response is only reporting information that is available in the conscious 2% of the mind. The processes in the other 98% may be harboring racial resentments and stereotypes that impact choices made.
Does this mean that the employer or landlord is unconsciously racist? Not necessarily. We often have conflicting feelings and thoughts and our explicit or conscious thoughts may differ from our implicit or unconscious ones. As a society, we are more likely to have racial fairness as a conscious value. One of the ways to make sure this value is not tripped up by our unconscious processes is to resolve to talk about race deliberately and constructively. This is not the prescribed norm for dealing with the issue of race. The racially enlightened are told not to talk about race or even to notice. That does not acknowledge the way our unconscious works.
Even if we could control the way we think of race, this would not give us reason to believe we are racially objective. Our lives are not simply a result of our conscious intentions. We must also pay attention to the ways our institutions interact and help shape our lives. We increasingly support integrated schools but send our children to increasingly segregated schools. This is not just a failure of living our values but a failure of aligning the work of our institutions with our stated values. The more complex society becomes, the more we rely on institutional arrangements to do work for us. Yet, seldom do we look at the work these institutions are doing to promote or constrain our stated values. If we are to understand race or any other important issue in our society we must expand our vision beyond the 2% of conscious process that is intentional. We must also look at our implicit processes and at how our institutions are structured.
The election of Barack Obama may indeed tell us much about shifts that are happening in the intentional conscious, but alone it is woefully inadequate to understand our world. If we are serious about racial fairness we must expand our scope.
Cross-posted from Race-Talk.
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Having worked on research years ago using implicit association testing techniques to gauge the existence of unconscious biases towards certain races, it was uncanny to see that, on the whole, it was those who truly thought themselves to be colorblind, or race-neutral, who showed the greatest levels of racial bias when faced with an implicit association test. Many who believe themselves to be beyond racial stereotypes gauge their enlightenment exactly by the fact that they do not make racist comments... in actuality, they simply do not discuss race at all. As Mr. Powell points out, simply not discussing race does not an unbiased person make.
More recently I was reminded of this research when moving from an affluent, cosmopolitan, urban setting to a more integrated rural setting. Discourse on race was fairly taboo in the prior setting, with everyone tiptoeing around their words for fear of being seen as bigoted. In my new setting, people discuss race openly. Sometimes they make comments that would cause those in the city gasp and think "racist," but this open dialogue allows understanding of one another. Understanding breeds familiarity, which in turn leads to comfort with and acceptance of those of different racial backgrounds. Only through interaction and open dialogue can those unconscious biases be challenged.
When you are behind, or on the bottom, & in the minority, choosing to give a leg up to "your own", is not only natural, but the right thing to do. If you don't first help yourself, family, friends, etc, get on their feet, you're not even keeping in step with Judeo/Christian values. That is why things like "Black Miss America", & "Black Chamber of Commerce", etc., are not "racist" but exist to help empower a group that is smaller & in need of upliftment, unlike white-only institutions, set up to exclude, to keep others out, & to make it harder for them to succeed. And since whites are the majority, we have no need to call anything "white", yet we see all the various white ethnicities & nationalities of origin, represented by various organizations, whether it be Irish, Polish, Italian, etc., & that's cool too, since no single group in the majority is setting in place something to exclude the minority....
Sorry for being long-winded, but I feel way too many white people fail to take a couple minutes, to see what's happening, from the other person's shoes. It's too easy to take a superficial look, make a very inaccurate conclusion, and see everything after that thru that narrow, & distorted lens.....
I read a book recently by a black guy who is an "expert" at diversity training. He claims in his book that while working years back on a master's thesis on rap music, he frequented a number of music stores in the Superior WI/Duluth MN area and, being the only black person for miles (I guess) claimed that upon entering the stores he knew instantly that the white store employees were suspicious of him and treating him differently. He doesn't give much supporting evidence, probably because there really isn't any. He only talks about making faces at security cameras and acting like a jerk as a way of getting back at these obvious bigots. I think it was all in his head. i.e., his 98% combined with his 2% to accuse a bunch of white people of having diversity issues.
So now we have to be worried all the time that, even if our 2% thinks it is not bigoted, the part of our consciousness we can't access except during dreams might be harboring all sorts of nefarious racist rants just itching to get out.
In a society where the majority is white, & especially one, like ours, where blacks have been systematically oppressed, persecuted, & excluded (from education, jobs, housing, & disproportionately targeted by law enforcement) I don't believe a black employer choosing a black job applicant over a white one, even if the white one may have more experience, etc., is discriminating wrongly, as it would be the other way around.
The big difference being the black employer is doing so to help out one of "his own", since they are having to play catch up, and it's not rational to expect white employers to do so. In our country's history, every new wave of immigrants did that very same thing, they helped each other out, so that they, as a group, would become empowered, and more quickly become mainstream members of society.
How could he possibly attract such negativity from white store employees? How could he rely on his life's own experience? How dare he have an experience?
Why even attempt to attribute humanity when there is nothing in the American experience that confers humanity or human feeling to Black people?
Save the two percent for hedge funds and derivatives. Things that actually work.
I certainly do not want to suggest all his past experience is irrelevant. I assure you, that was not my intention.