Equal Justice Society » race

EJS Co-Presents Unconscious Bias Panel at Writers Guild in LA, Introduction by Norman Lear

Keith Kamisugi — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:24:17 +0000

The Equal Justice Society will co-present in late-September a thought-provoking discussion on unconscious bias offering insights that will challenge and inspire new ideas in developing and producing programming that reflects the true diversity of our rapidly changing society.

EJS joins the Writers Guild of America West, Screen Actors Guild, Americans for American Values and the Kirwan Institute in presenting “Reading Between the Lines: Uncovering Unconscious Bias” on September 30, 2009, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Writers Guild of America, 7000 West Third Street, Los Angeles. A reception will follow the panel, which will be introduced by Norman Lear.

UPDATE: We will be videotaping this event.

The event is listed on Facebook, but RSVPs must be sent to diversity@wga.org with “Between the Lines” in subject line of your email. Contact the WGAW Diversity Department at 323-782-4589 with any questions.

In his autobiography Nelson Mandela tells of getting on a plane in Africa after his release from 28 years of imprisonment. The pilot of the plane was a Black African. This frightened Mandela. When he examined his fears, he realized that he had internalized negative stereotypes of Black incompetence. Many of us have internalized negative stereotypes of women, lesbians and gay men, the disabled, older people, and people of color. These fears operate in our unconscious.

Panelists include:

Celinda Lake, Pollster
john powell, Professor of Law, The Ohio State University
Antonia Hernández, President and Chief Executive Officer, The California Community Foundation
Dr. Camille Charles, University of Pennsylvania
Jerry Kang, Professor of Law, UCLA
Dr. Maninder Kahlon, Cognitive Neuroscientist
Jeff Adachi, San Francisco Public Defender and Producer of The Slanted Screen, a documentary on Asian Americans in cinema
Eva Paterson, President, Equal Justice Society

With special guests:

Kathleen Antonia, attorney and actor
Tim Paulson, California Teachers Association
Larissa Fasthorse, WGAW American Indian Writers Committee
John S. Johnson, Director, Harmony Institute

The panelists will explore how the brain processes information and how the need for quick decision often leads to faulty conclusions. Political ads from the 2008 presidential campaign will be used as examples of how media can “prime” viewers to activate stereotypes and similarly, deactivate the impact of negative unconscious stereotypes. A number of ads showed candidate Obama as a menacing Black man – purposefully done to make voters afraid of him.

EJS has studied the intersection of unconscious bias and social justice since 2003. Our signature project on this issue is the collaboration with the California Teachers Association to assess racial bias in the classroom and school environment and its impact on student achievement.

“Implicit (unconscious) bias and stereotyping are gaining increasing attention as a possible explanation of unequal treatment in a number of settings including education, employment, health care and law,” said Dr. James Outtz, an industrial and organizational psychologist, who leads the research team on behalf of EJS and CTA. Dr. Outtz explained that scientists define unconscious bias as implicit attitudes, actions or judgments that are controlled by automatic evaluation without a person’s awareness. Existing research shows that we all engage in a cognitive process called “categorization” to simplify and streamline how we perceive others (e.g. sex, race, or age). This process can lead to stereotype application that influences our thoughts and behaviors towards members of certain groups.

Notably, there are a number of social power relationships in our society in which the application of stereotypes may be particularly detrimental to members of racial and ethnic minority groups, the teacher-student relationship being one significant example.

Our workshop will provide a background on the unconscious bias theory, drawing from our six years of work on the issue and identifying ways that unconscious bias can be better understood and used by writers.

Contact me at kkamisugi@equaljusticesociety.org if you have questions about this event.

Session on ‘Myth of Post-Racial America’ at Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh, Aug. 13-16

Keith Kamisugi — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:26:38 +0000

The Equal Justice Society is proud to support Netroots Nation, the country’s top convention for progressive online activists. The fourth annual gathering of the Netroots (formerly known as the YearlyKos Convention) will be held August 13–16 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, Pa.

EJS is coordinating a session on “The Myth of Post-Racial America” on Thursday, August 13, from 9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. Panelists include Rinku Sen, President and Executive Director of the Applied Research Center (ARC); Rich Benjamin, Senior Fellow at DEMOS; Annabel Park, director/producer of the upcoming documentary film “9500 Liberty” and moderated by Keith Kamisugi, EJS Director of Communications. Save the session date and info on Facebook.

Netroots Nation 2009 will include panels led by national and international experts; a progressive film screening series; practical training sessions and workshops; and the most concentrated gathering of progressive bloggers to date.

Past gatherings have included a Presidential Leadership Forum that drew seven Democratic candidates, a surprise visit from Al Gore; an interactive Ask the Speaker session with Nancy Pelosi; and hundreds of panels, roundtables, training sessions, workshops and keynotes.

Contact Keith Kamisugi (kkamisugi@equaljusticesociety.org) for more information on this session or the conference.

Scholarships Available for Bloggers Covering Immigration Issues

As progressives across the country begin strategizing and organizing around comprehensive immigration reform, there’s no better place to connect than this summer’s Netroots Nation convention. With nearly 100 training sessions and panels to choose from, it’s vital that those who write about immigration are well-represented in Pittsburgh.

Do you know someone working at the intersection of new media and immigration, who blogs on the issue, and who needs some help getting to Netroots Nation? If so, tell them to apply for a scholarship!

This year, America’s Voice, an organization committed to supporting a vibrant and independent pro-migrant blogosphere, will send eight immigration bloggers to Pittsburgh to attend the convention. The scholarship includes registration, a travel stipend and shared hotel accommodations.

The America’s Voice and Netroots Nation scholarship selection committee will rely on several unique factors to select contest winners. Above all, we are interested in hearing your personal story and your personal connection to the issue, what drives your work, and why you would like to attend Netroots Nation.

It’s also important that we select people who are not only passionate about blogging and/or online activism, but who bring a unique and underrepresented perspective to the Netroots Nation convention.

The answers that you submit in your application are private, but if selected as a winner, we may ask to publish some of your answers on our website.

Apply now to be a America’s Voice/Netroots Nation 2009 Scholar.

Since time is short and we want to let winners make their travel arrangements, all applications are due by Monday, July 20. Selections will be posted online by August 1, but winners will be contacted via email as soon as they are selected.

Of race, of belonging, and of breaking barriers big and small: Why I mourn the loss of Michael Jackson

Keith Kamisugi — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:48:03 +0000

This post was written by Susan Serrano, our research director here at EJS from 2001-2005. Susan is now the Director of Educational Development, Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law, at the University of Hawai’i William S. Richardson School of Law.

Over the last few days, I’ve searched my heart and mind to figure out why I’m so emotional about Michael Jackson’s death. I mean, it’s not like I knew him . . . or even followed his career in many years.

Friends in my age group say that it’s because his music helped to define our childhood. Others say it’s because his death signifies the end of a chapter of our lives. Yet others say that it’s because his songs conjure deep memories of the past.

All of those things are true. So are the memories of the Michael Jackson concert I went to in 1997 with my closest friends, the zillion times I played “Thriller” on my record player, and the way I almost wore out our Betamax VCR playing his videos. And, of course, I’m emotional because I feel sorry for his tortured life and much-too-early death. But for me, there’s something more.

I’m half Japanese American and half Puerto Rican – and quite Afro-Puerto Rican, at that. I grew up in a small, very-predominantly white town – Petaluma, California – with my single mom. Playing with my friends was fun. We all had white baby dolls. We all had blond Barbies. We acted out Grease. We loved Shaun Cassidy. We read Tiger Beat and kissed all the handsome, young, white movie stars that graced the pages. We got “Physical” to Olivia Newton John.

But I never saw anyone in my image. No teachers. No parents. No friends. No role models. At that time, there may have been many white ethnic groups in Petaluma, but a diverse place it was not.

Some kids called me “nigger.” Others called me “Jap” (making sure to make squinty-eyes with their fingers while they were saying it). Others told racial jokes in my presence as if it didn’t matter that I was there.

One girl said that if she ever brought a non-white boy home, her dad said he would get out the shotgun. Even those important adults (teachers, parents and others) who were well-meaning, inadvertently said things that made me feel even more different – and excluded.

I was full of self-hate. I straightened my hair. I wore the whitest powder on my face I could manage. I lied about my race. I envied my white friends. I wished on stars that I could be white – somehow. I even asked my mom why she couldn’t have married a white guy so I could have come out different. Some days, I felt as though I lived in my own private hell.

Then came the force that was Michael Jackson. He was Black. He was handsome. He was a superstar. We all learned how to moonwalk. We watched his videos over and over . . . and over. We bought his records, his posters. White girls screamed for him. White girls.

For the first time in my short and undeveloped life, I breathed a sigh of relief. If white girls could have crushes on an African American man, that must mean that being non-white was OK. Maybe I was OK. Maybe the standard of beauty wasn’t blond hair and blue eyes – maybe I could look more like the African American girl in the “Thriller” video – and that was OK.

For the first time, I really realized that there were people out there who looked more like me, and they were well-loved, popular, and real.

I know, almost all kids and teens go through a “stage.” They feel like they don’t belong. They get teased. But this is not just about zits or baby fat. This is about race. And race in America comes with a long history of exclusion, occupation, segregation, discrimination.

So, the fact that Michael Jackson broke down barriers, integrated music television, crossed-over, transcended, spoke to the masses, was – and is – a big deal. For the U.S. and the world.

And while Michael was throwing open the doors of opportunity in the entertainment business, he was giving me the confidence as a young woman of color to stand tall and go on. And for that, I am forever grateful.

Of course, Michael Jackson did not single-handedly solve my – or anyone else’s – racial issues. Transformation doesn’t happen overnight, and sometimes not in a lifetime. The wounds of American racial history run deep. And, ironically, Michael suffered from his own intense version of self-hate.

But that doesn’t matter to me now. All I remember is that fast-footed, sparkling-gloved, sweet-voiced Black man who helped launch me into adolescence just a little less ashamed of who I was.

And that is why I mourn his passing.

Thank you, Michael, for what you gave me . . . and the world. Rest in peace.

- Susan K. Serrano

Ricci Decision Threatens Constitutional Values of Equal Justice for All

Keith Kamisugi — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:59:38 +0000

In a 5 to 4 decision in the case of Ricci v. DeStefano, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the city of New Haven, Connecticut violated Title VII when it declined to make promotions in the fire department on the basis of a test that disproportionately screened out minority candidates.

The Equal Justice Society joined the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in an amicus curiae, or friend of the court, brief urging the Court to uphold New Haven’s efforts to root out discrimination from its promotional process, consistent with civil rights laws and the Constitution. The Lawyers’ Committee brief was also joined by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League.

“We are shocked by the decision and we will continue our work to preserve the vital protections of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” said Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Like Justice Ginsburg, we anticipate that the decision ‘will not have staying power.’”

In this case, the city of New Haven, Connecticut declined to certify the results of a firefighter promotion test based on evidence that the test discriminated on the basis of race. The city also had evidence that more fair and effective tests were available. Rather than making promotions on the basis of the discriminatory test, the city declined to certify the results, and sought to explore less discriminatory alternatives, in keeping with its obligations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When the city declined to make promotions on the basis of the test results, firefighters who had scored highly on the test filed suit, alleging that the city discriminated on the basis of race.

“Today’s decision ignores the plain language of Title VII, congressional intent and established precedent,” said Sarah Crawford, senior counsel with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law’s Employment Discrimination Project. “We still have far to go to fulfill Title VII’s promise of equal employment opportunity. This is a giant leap backward.”

Ideologically-Charged Decision in Ricci v. DeStefano Ignores History, Precedent

Keith Kamisugi — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:43:23 +0000

In a statement issued today on the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision on Ricci v. DeStefano, Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron said that the “majority’s opinion ignores our nation’s history, rejects precedent, overturns the judgment of local government officials and makes it more difficult for employers to take voluntary steps to break down barriers to equal employment.”

“Continuing its assault on our civil rights laws, the five conservative ideologues on the Supreme Court today rejected long-standing law to weaken Title VII protections for traditional victims of discrimination,” said Aron.

Before the Court issued its ruling, People For the American Way Executive Vice President Marge Baker said that: “Opponents of Judge Sotomayor have gone to great lengths to use the ruling of her panel in Ricci v. DeStefano against her, and they will surely ramp up their efforts if the Supreme Court overturns the Second Circuit. But the simple fact is that the Supreme Court’s ruling, whatever it may be, will not reflect upon Sotomayor’s jurisprudence.

“Sotomayor and her panel colleagues were bound by longstanding precedent and federal law. They applied the law without regard to their personal views and unanimously affirmed the district court ruling. To do anything but would have been judicial activism.

“The full Second Circuit backed up the panel, which came as no surprise. Nearly ten years earlier a Second Circuit panel — consisting of three GOP nominees — reached the same conclusion in a similar case (Hayden v. County of Nassau).

“When a case virtually identical to Ricci came before the Sixth Circuit — Oakley v. Memphis — a panel rejected the plaintiffs’ claims and affirmed the district court ruling. Notably, they did so in an unpublished summary order, and one of the three judges was conservative Bush nominee Richard Allen Griffin.

“In other words, Sotomayor is anything but an outlier. She and the seven other federal judges who decided Ricci and Oakley at the district and circuit levels were unanimous in determining that precedent and federal law required the rejection of the suits.”

Eva Paterson’s BBC Radio Interview on Racism and Obama

Keith Kamisugi — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:58:58 +0000

BBC Radio’s Mark Forrest talks with EJS President Eva Paterson following reports this week that a staffer for a Republican state Senator in Tennessee sent an email with an image showing portraits of our presidents, except President Obama is depicted only with two eyeballs on a solid black background.

As reported by numerous outlets, including HuffPo, Newscoma and Nashville is Taking, Sherri Goforth, an executive assistant for Tennessee State Rep. Diane Black (R-Gallatin), sent this picture out to other legislative staffers:

Eva talks about the role of unconscious bias in how racism is manifested today and also about her movie, Presidential Race, which examines how far we have come in the forty-six years since Martin Luther King electrified the country with his “I Have A Dream” speech.

Listen to the interview here (go to the 3:11:48 mark):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00l59b4/Up_All_Night_18_06_2009

EJS’s profound interest in the science of unconscious bias is a key component of our long-range initiative to dismantle the Intent Doctrine. In 1976, just a few years after Justice William Rehnquist joined the bench, Washington v. Davis was decided, placing a nearly insurmountable hurdle in the way of plaintiffs seeking redress for discrimination.

This decision placed a prohibitive burden on victims of discrimination and limited the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by restricting its remedial reach to cases in which the plaintiff could prove a decision-maker’s specific “intent” to discriminate.

Racial justice is impossible to achieve when the law fails to reflect the actual experiences of communities who have seen and felt discrimination. Social psychologists, critical sociologists and other social scientists have developed empirical and theoretical research showing that the Intent Doctrine fails to reflect how a large part of discrimination actually occurs.

According to these studies, all of us have unconscious biases that influence how we perceive and make decisions about other people. Individual and institutional discrimination, often guided by these cognitive biases and stereotypes, can occur even in the absence of blatant prejudice. Many of these powerful theories and studies, however, are not being fully utilized on the front lines of political debate or courtrooms by legal advocates.

In order to provide lawyers with the necessary tools to challenge the faulty assumptions of the Intent Doctrine, the Equal Justice Society brings together social scientists, lawyers, pollsters, legal academics and students to develop long-term strategies for introducing a more accurate understanding of discrimination into the law. Most Americans do not want to be racist and do not think they act in racially biased ways.

Not only does our promoting of the unconscious bias framework support our work to dismantle Intent, but it also allows for a more engaging approach to address racism – i.e., promoting unconscious bias takes a “building awareness” rather than a “blaming” approach.

Race and Popular Culture: “Top Chef and the Black/Non-Black Divide”

Keith Kamisugi — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:59:38 +0000

I stumbled upon an intriguing June 7 post by Tamara K. Nopper, Ph.D., Adjunct Assistant Professor, Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania. She discusses the racial dynamics of the popular reality TV show Top Chef on the cable network Bravo. How the entertainment industry deals with race is an element of our communications strategy here at EJS. We developed a focus on this knowing that popular culture has a powerful impact on Americans; and the way that TV shows, movies and other entertainment platforms frame race is an area that we must continue to engage in. Her blog post is re-posted here from the Everyday Sociology blog with Dr. Nopper’s permission.

“Top Chef and the Black/Non-Black Divide”

I love the show Top Chef. I watch it religiously and regularly chat about it with fellow fan and friend Kevin Eddington. Although more of a foodie than me—he actually knows what sous vide means—we share concerns about the show’s racial dynamics, some of which I want to discuss here. Specifically, I want to explore how Asian Americans and African Americans are represented on Top Chef and in the process, draw from approaches emphasizing the Black/non-Black divide.

The Black/non-Black framework is proposed by George Yancey in his book Who is White?: Latinos, Asians, and the New Black/Nonblack Divide. According to Yancey, this framework is more helpful for analyzing racism than a white/non-white paradigm because Blacks experience a unique degree of social isolation, as evidenced by how whites, Latinos, and Asian Americans reject them as potential neighbors and marriage partners yet remain open to each other. Yancey’s conclusion bears out on the show.

Asian Americans are present as contestants, chefs, judges, and of course, hosts, and Hung Huynh won the title on season three. Yet Asian Americans face particular racial expectations: they’re encouraged to talk about their ethnicities or immigration histories, badmouthed for cooking too many Asian-influenced dishes, or expected to cook Asian food regardless of training. For example, Huynh was told that despite his skill and “technique,” his food lacked “soul.”

White head judge Tom Colicchio, reminding Huynh of Huynh’s Vietnamese background, said he didn’t “see” him in his food. Such comments reinforce the model minority myth, which celebrates “Asian” work ethic and mechanical productivity while denying us unconditional subjectivity, sociability, and authority automatically afforded whites.

Ultimately Huynh incorporated Asian-influenced flavors into his final meal in hopes of revealing his “authentic” (ethnic) self to the judges. As Huynh tried to express “soul,” his (aired) image shifted from a technically efficient, ultra-competitive, and unlikable Asian to a more humbled Asian eager to take advantage of American opportunities available to him and other immigrants, making one blogger conclude, “he seemed to…acquire social skills in front of my eyes.”

Whereas Asian Americans are racialized in ways that whites aren’t— white contestants aren’t expected to cook foods of their ethnicities so that judges “know” them—African Americans, for the most part, are physically absent from the show. Yet as Frank B. Wilderson, III explains in the anthology Biko Lives!, even when physically present, Blacks remain absent. Despite the popularity and skills of Tre Wilcox and Carla Hall, they exemplify what Wilderson describes as “the absence of a subjective presence.” Unlike Asian Americans, who could explicitly reference their ethnic backgrounds, they could not. They couldn’t talk about Black marginalization in the culinary industry, but were forced to adopt de-racialized tropes of gender and class marginalization used by whites, particularly women and those who are not classically trained.

Black participants also lacked what Wilderson describes as “political presence” in that they were denied cultural and institutional authority. Although Blacks don’t automatically cook (or eat) “soul food,” they are often relegated to doing so regardless of training. While “ghettoizing,” such gestures, as my friend Kevin points out, also imply that soul food has little value to the non-Black culinary world.

Indeed, no chefs were expected to know foods that are culturally associated with Black people, with the exception of the final competitions held in New Orleans on season five. Yet at both dinners, all of the judges were white except for Asian host and judge Padma Lakshmi. Because Bravo TV, which airs Top Chef, doesn’t have all five seasons archived on its website, I can’t say for certain, but I only remember one Black person, chef Govind Armstrong, ever sitting at the judges’ table during deliberations. I only remember four other Black people—and only one of them a chef—serving as guest diners: chef Marcus Samuelsson (whom my friend Kevin points out was not born or raised in the United States), actress and comic Aisha Tyler, sociologist Mary Patillo (who was never introduced to viewers but who I recognized from being in the same profession), and musician Branford Marsalis—who was the lone Black guest at the final New Orleans dinner.

Marsalis even drew attention to his lack of political presence: after listening to others discuss how dishes tasted good but didn’t “pop,” he remarked that chefs talk just like musicians. Although the others tittered, Marsalis, perhaps inadvertently, alluded to the absurdity of his physical presence as a musician at a food competition where all of the other guests were esteemed members of the culinary world—and all non-Black.

Consistent with Yancey’s and Wilderson’s arguments, then, Asian Americans are more present in multiple ways compared to African Americans on Top Chef. Asian Americans compete, host, sample, and judge. We’re recognized as having an identifiable culture and permitted narratives of “Asian Americanness.” Intrusive, limiting, and racist, these narratives nevertheless serve to endear us to non-Asians because they affirm our presumed ethnic “exoticness” while simultaneously re-institutionalizing “universal” ideas related to the white immigrant experience that emphasize outsider status (but not social inequality). And, Asian cuisine is treated as a legitimate cuisine with history, culture, and place as demonstrated by whites citing it as their specialty, talking about taking classes in Asian cooking, or traveling to Asian countries to learn flavors and techniques. Finally, Asian cuisine is racialized as simultaneously traditional and global and therefore marketable to non-Asians.

Enjoyable to watch, Top Chef is, like many pleasures experienced in a racist society, an opportunity for sociological reflection. When the soon to be launched Top Chef Masters airs, I am sure my friend Kevin and I’ll have lots to dish about. And I am certain that the Black/non-Black divide framework will still be useful for understanding the show’s dynamics. The program’s website already tells me as much. Announcing the competition of “24 world-renowned chefs,” its pictures do indeed speak a thousand words. As images of participants reveal, a few Asian Americans will be featured as competitors and host/judge; but this time around, there are literally no Blacks on the show.