Bias: It’s a Scientific Fact

I don’t trust anyone who says they’re unbiased. The longer I’ve been around, the more it’s become clear that anyone crowing about how unbiased they are has bias oozing from every orifice. I’ve learned to invest more trust in the people and orgs that admit bias happens, yes even to them, and they’re constantly working to overcome it. I’ve had to face up to the fact I’ve got biases, too, just like we all do. I know I’m missing some of my biases, but I work to identify them, and work to compensate for the ones I know I’ve got.

Bias, it turns out, isn’t just an impression some of us social justice types got: it’s a cold, hard, scientific fact. Olivia James took a look at some of the studies, and has a pair of excellent posts up on what science shows about bias. They make for some pretty revealing reading.

Start with Yes Virginia, There is Evidence of Bias, where she talks about Skepticland, studies she’s found, and asks an important question about the atheoskeptisphere:

When I see people saying that black deaths at the hands of cops are not racially motivated, all I can think of is this study showing that we’re more likely to see a harmless object as a gun when it’s held by a black person.

When someone says that women could be in STEM fields if they just tried harder or wanted it more, oh, well what about hiring bias?

When someone suggests that people who are overweight aren’t discriminated against it’s for their own good/they’re just lazy/what bias, I just want to send over this study that literally shows the same individuals are treated differently at different weights.

So why are otherwise skeptical individuals suddenly incapable of Googling when questions of bias appear?

Finish up with 9 Studies That Show We’re All a Little Biased for an eye-opening experience with bias. It’s pretty sobering stuff. But with awareness comes the power to change things for the better – not to mention lots of peer-reviewed evidence to chuck at the next person who claims they are Totes Bias Free.

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Bias: It’s a Scientific Fact
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8 thoughts on “Bias: It’s a Scientific Fact

  1. rq
    1

    Mm, we’re all biased – the trouble is recognizing that, and knowing when it happens, and doing something about it. Sooooo haaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrd.
    (Actually, it can be hard to look at yourself and your own mistakes and then thinking about how to fix them when you know you had no bloody idea how you went wrong in the first place… but it gets better with time, and also, the rewards are EXCELLENT.)

  2. 2

    I don’t trust anyone who says they’re unbiased. The longer I’ve been around, the more it’s become clear that anyone crowing about how unbiased they are has bias oozing from every orifice.

    Yup. “I don’t see race” is a dead giveaway that the person uttering the words wants nothing more than to avoid seeing/admitting/confronting racism.

  3. Pen
    3

    Yup. “I don’t see race” is a dead giveaway that the person uttering the words wants nothing more than to avoid seeing/admitting/confronting racism.

    Not sure about that one. Granted that it’s going down like a lead balloon, I think you have to consider the possibility that ‘seeing race’ is associated with a very negative set of behaviors for that person and they’re trying to signal the fact that they don’t intend to engage in any of them. Until I’d investigated further, I would take it as a dead giveaway for the fact that they’re not very familiar with anti-racist discourse, but have been exposed to plenty of racist discourse and don’t like it. Just a thought…

  4. 4

    Racism, more generally the negative feelings associated with people not perceived to be ‘like us’, will never be eliminated. That is Not a reason to give up. I think it is realistic to expect the worse abuses to be curbed and punished, and bias, of all types, to be managed.

  5. rq
    5

    People who ‘don’t see race’ often only see white as legitimate race, and anyone bringing up black issues is trying to take away something away from white people. Like all those people who accept Christian Bale as Moses, but are freaking out over Annie being black. As an example. The response to the first is ‘hey, I don’t see race, it’s not about race!’ and the response to the second is complete and total outrage. It’s a silencing tactic that intends to guilt-trip those who want and NEED to talk about race issues into silence, because hey, look at this awesome white person who doesn’t see race! Funny, that.
    I would agree, though, that these people often don’t actually understand race issues and believe in some idealized version of the world where everything is fair. Swimming in their biases and privilege, I would say, and still not deserving of particular sympathy.

  6. 6

    Thank you RQ. You basically expanded on what I was trying to say in my snippet. As you and Pen note, many people who say they don’t see race are simply uninformed about issues of racism and their own privilege even if they are opposed to (some forms of) racism (that they are able to see/acknowledge.) But in practice, in my experience, it seems like every time someone utters the phrase or some variation they are trying to shut down real discussion and declaring that they don’t have much interest in expanding their view of racism to include stuff that they currently don’t see themselves. They know racism and aren’t real big on considering the possibility that maybe just maybe their view of what constitutes racism is incomplete. At least that’s how I’m seeing the phrase used most often.

  7. Pen
    7

    They know racism and aren’t real big on considering the possibility that maybe just maybe their view of what constitutes racism is incomplete.

    I agree with you totally on that part. They ‘know’ racism of the kind Great-Aunty Mildred / Dad / the jerk at the next desk is very frequently heard saying in all white company and they reject it (usually). I think they are trying to shut down discussions on racial topics, but I’m less sure than you about the reasons.

    I was present at two instances of people diminishing the importance of race recently. The first involved a white man who was obviously very certain that even a polite consensual discussion of a racial topic would end badly for all of us and spoil an event which was meant to be dedicated to other matters. Frankly, he was scared there’d be a row. The second involved a black woman for whom paying attention to racial matters was so clearly associated with all kinds of negativity that she said she wanted no part of it. After telling us so in the most unequivocal terms, she went on to detail all the efforts she’d put in to improving race relations in our society throughout her life. Granted, there’s something not quite logical about her position, I’m prepared to work with what she meant rather than what she said.

  8. rq
    8

    Well, discussing racism is a lot like discussing, say, religion. There’s a time and a place – your friendly family get-together dinner-party may not be the best place for various reasons. So I think your two situations actually make a lot of sense – (a) spoiling an event not meant for such discussions and (b) someone who probably deals with racist shit on a daily basis not wanting to indulge in her (I’m assuming?) free time. Both situation as perfectly understandable and don’t actually detract from discussing race. Not all discussions have to be about race all of the time.
    What does detract from the discussion is situations where, say, a black person has been shot by a white cop, and everyone insists it’s not about race – especially the shooting cop, who doesn’t see race, and would react identically if the person interacted with was white. At that point, the person who is ‘blind to race’ and doesn’t want to discuss its role in the situation is actively ignoring all the evidence pointing towards an excess of black deaths at the hands of the police, and the general fashion in which black people are treated before the law – totally at odds with how white people are treated, for the majoritarily most part.
    Or, someone says they don’t see race when hiring, but somehow end up hiring only white people because the accomplishments of black people, though the same as those of white people, just don’t measure up somehow when looking for someone with the right kinds of qualifications. Same could be said of those who say gender doesn’t matter, but still manage to hire majoritarily men. Or all those conventions that say they’d invite more women speakers if only there were some qualified enough out there (without even bothering to look, or if they bother, doing so in the most cursory way possible).

    Anyway, I do believe that the first type of instance (legitimate reason for not engaging in a certain type of potentially explosive conversation) is not the subject of the post, and therefore need not apply in our further discussion of the ‘I don’t see race’ (or other bias) kind of person.

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