Re: #317
Looks like what Ben Barres noticed in personal experience.
https://newrepublic.com/article/119239/transgender-people-can-explain-why-women-dont-advance-work
Policies can influence people to be racist. But then racist people create or support racist policies (why else would racist policies exist?), so it goes both ways.
@“Cardinal Fang” Yes, the core of the disagreement revolves around the (in my opinion) overuse in labeling others as “racist”. I just don’t see what it accomplishes. I would go further and say it actually is counterproductive to the narrative of inclusion, diversity and equal opportunity. And no…I can’t think of another word that could be used.
First, let me be clear, I would not hesitate to think/call someone a racist if they are a white supremacist, identifies with the KKK or believes skin color is an indication of cognitive ability or law abidingness. I am also not in denial that discriminatory behavior happens on a conscious level, in a deliberate manner, on a frequent basis as @Nrdsb4 stated.
I agree with you to a certain degree. (It might not have been directed at me, but) I don’t believe I ever said one cannot call out racists. If anyone wants to call someone else a racist that is their right. I think calling out leaders, such as elected officials, helps to inform the electorate.
I simply believe it is not the right method for increasing awareness of racist behavior and changing perception among the masses who may change. In my opinion, if the word ‘racist’ is used indiscriminately, it loses its meaning/effectiveness. I don’t believe you can bully/shame someone into conforming.
The point I was trying to make was I feel the same way you do, when it comes to employment - hiring, retention and advancement. We’re on the same side. But where we diverge is that I feel when our side uses the word “racist”, we are sometimes doing a disservice to our position. People become defensive and seek to justify/explain their actions, rather than considering the points of the discussion.
For instance, in your gender bias example above, would calling out the faculty members as male chauvinist pigs or sexists, help with bringing about the desired change? Hopefully, awareness backed by data would assist in rectifying the situation.
In the case of Jamal and Jason from post #314, would calling the hiring manager a racist be productive? Or should the identical resumes be brought to his/her attention, giving the manager the opportunity to consciously modify his/her behavior?
I believe pre-judging someone based on the color of one’s skin is a terrible thing. But I am willing to reserve judgment and give a person the opportunity to acknowledge their bias and modify their behavior. Why? Because that’s how I think meaningful change occurs. I don’t think lecturing someone about racism will do it. We want the same thing, but have different ideas about how to address it. I prefer to talk about what constitutes racist behavior rather than accuse those who may exhibit racist behavior unintentionally.
So am I in denial about the prevalence of racism? No.
Am I naive enough to believe everyone will reject racism if given the benefit of the doubt? No.
But I do feel with time we will continue on the path of inclusion. It stinks for those suffering from racial bias, but I can’t imagine a way of instantaneously ‘flipping a switch’ on the subject.
OK, so we don’t want to walk up to the hiring manager who rejects Jamal subconsciously, and call her a racist. But between ourselves, what term do we use for her? If we have no term at at all, we fall into the trap of appearing to agree with those who deny she exists, and who pretend to themselves that no one is subconsciously racist, certainly not themselves, even when presented with incontrovertible evidence.
Subconscious bias is a real thing. For Jamal, it doesn’t matter whether he doesn’t get the job because the hiring manager unconsciously rejects him instead of knowingly rejecting him, He is still the victim of discrimination, and it!s just as bad.
On the first page of this thread, @zomaya99 recommended the National Book Award winner Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X. Kendi. Does anyone want to join me reading and discussing it? I know I should read it, but I don’t think I’ll get through it without friends.
If you want a sampling of the ideas, Kendi discusses his book in interviews:
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/6/28/stamped_from_the_beginning_ibram_x
https://earlyamericanists.com/2016/12/08/qa-ibram-kendi-stamped-from-the-beginning/
https://s-usih.org/2017/05/interview-with-ibram-x-kendi-author-of-stamped-from-the-beginning/
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Give me a break. The star basketball player at my son’s prep school, a black teen, was found with narcotics in his locker during a drug sweep. How many days of school or games did he miss? Zero. And that’s how things go along…
What is your point, writermom2018? Star athletes (white or black) get excused for bad behavior, so it’s all right that white kids who are not star athletes don’t get arrested for drug crimes but black kids who aren’t star athletes do get arrested for drug crimes? The justice system treats some people differently than others, and we should just ignore it?
Here is a very cautiously written article on “implicit bias”:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-think-about-implicit-bias/
Here are my thoughts:
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There is little test-retest reliability to the IAT. My criticism of social sciences in general holds. If we can not even test for it with any degree of accuracy, how can we study it?
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If most people are biased (frankly I think we all are biased), then the news we have been fed since childhood are biased. This means I have a choice in life; I can ignore the news and be uninformed, or pay attention to the news and be misinformed. Wow, great to know.
^^^^^
Mathematics offers certainties but not effectiveness.
Engineering offers effectiveness but not certainties.
Social Science offers neither certainties nor effectiveness.
Frankly I think we’re all biased too. I don’t know why news would be the particular culprit here. Any kind of culture or information exchange can confirm implicit bias. We learn from our parents, from our teachers and from our friends.
The article Canuckguy linked was clear: “implicit bias is real—and it matters.”
The intertest reliability of the Implicit Association Test is not super for an individual, but it’s excellent for groups, which is what we care about for the purposes of this discussion. That is, an individual might be more or less biased at different times-- maybe they had a good experience with a black guy one day and it made them less biased for that day-- but on average, people are biased, as is confirmed by many, many different measures.
It has been my experience that media ownership in countries I know are not diverse. The bias always reflect that of those who are in power at present. People often conflate free media with neutral media. The two are not the same. The Jesuit maxim “Give me a child for for his first seven years and I’ll give you the man” rings true.
I always feel CC posters, in general, do not treat bias against URMs the same way they do with bias against ORMs. I suspect personal self-interest plays an important role here. This must remain, however, an opinion only. We can not even call it a hypothesis until we have reliable tools to verify it one way or another.
An intelligence test is not super for an individual but is excellent for groups. The IAT is neither excellent for individuals nor groups. I think you are mistaken here.
Why do you say that? The article you cite says the opposite. It says in no uncertain terms that while the inter-test reliability of the IAT is not stellar, the IAT reports the same bias in groups that other instruments report.
But the other instruments also have test-retest reliability problem.
If the report is saying bias exists because all bad tests say they exist, the leap in logic is troubling; if it is suggesting that while the IAT is a bad test, the sum of bad tests give good and accurate results is even more disturbing.
I don’t know what other “bad tests” you are referring to, @canuckguy. When I said the existence of implicit bias was confirmed by many other measures, I was referring to things like studies showing that landlords turn away people with black faces, and that academics in biology prefer people with male names to people with female names and the identical resume. These are not “tests,” let alone “bad tests.” That bias exists is well established.
Yeah, those landlords have to have that implicit bias". I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that minorities have lower credit scores (or more chance of no credit history) than whites.
If you want to eliminate potential tenants with a low credit score, you look at their credit score, not their skin.
Exactly. But your assumption was that landlords are turning away people because of the color of their skin. And it’s more likely they are getting turned away because of their credit score.