Share Your Unconscious Bias Stories With Us
The Equal Justice Society is working to deepen awareness of unconscious bias through the use of storytelling in television and movies (read more about our related activities). There are a host of interesting stories that can be packaged to Hollywood to both entertain and educate people on the ways that unintentional racism still permeates.
We are looking for real examples of unconscious bias that can serve as the basis for fictional storylines. Here are a few examples:
Imagine: Ten years ago, a black man and a white man who were both in interracial marriages were convicted in the brutal murders of their wives. The white husband was sentenced to life in prison while the black husband was sentenced to death row. A lawsuit ensues.
Something like this happened. McCleskey v. Kemp was decided by the Supreme Court in 1987. Warren McCleskey, a black man, was convicted of armed robbery and murder in the Atlanta area of Georgia. He was given the death penalty. After his conviction, McCleskey appealed the death sentence arguing that the death penalty was administered in a racially discriminatory way, violating the Fourteenth Amendment which, generally, prohibits state sponsored discrimination. McCleskey, with the help of statistical research provided from a law professor, was able to show that the state of Georgia administered the death penalty in a discriminatory manner. Indeed, the professor’s work showed that one found guilty of murdering a white person was 16 times more likely to be sentenced to death than had the victim been black. The Supreme Court held that since there was no discriminatory intent, the Fourteenth Amendment was not violated. On September 28, 1991, Warren McCleskey was executed by state of Georgia’s electric chair.
Imagine: A city has a policy of targeting black barbershops. One day, police raid a black barbershop and the cops shoot an unarmed suspected.
This could be based off a true story. Gordon v. City of Moreno Valley concerns the asserted unconstitutionality of a police raid of black barbershops in the city of Moreno Valley, California in April of 2008. Inspectors and armed police officers wearing bulletproof vests conducted warrantless searches of the barbershops during which officers ran warrant checks of individuals therein. When one owner complained, he was arrested. The plaintiffs, barbershop owners, employees and customers argued that their Fourteenth Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights (which protect individuals from unlawful searches and seizures by the state). The Fourteenth Amendment claim was that the state specifically and unlawfully targeted black barbershops. The district court held that their was discriminatory intent on behalf of the state and that the Fourteenth Amendment was violated. With regards to the Fourth Amendment, the court found that the searches were not routine inspections for which a warrant is not necessary because these were raids and far broader than a inspection done to further regulatory purposes.
These are just two examples. We’re interested in more and hope you can help.
If you have stories from your files, dockets, or recollections and can provide us with details, please contact Brando Simeo Starkey, our EJS Judge Constance Baker Motley Civil Rights Fellow at bstarkey@equaljusticesociety.org.
EJS Co-Presents Unconscious Bias Panel at Writers Guild in LA, Introduction by Norman Lear
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.
Eva Paterson’s BBC Radio Interview on Racism and Obama
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.
How the Amazon ‘Glitch’ Relates to Structural Discrimination and Racism
Technologist Mary Hodder discussed yesterday on the blog TechCrunch the ethical issues related to the Amazon ‘glitch’ that removed the rankings of gay content made me think about analogies between the technical causes of the glitch and how unconscious bias can fuel structural racism.
Background on the Amazon ‘glitch’ issue from Wikipedia (edited):
Users on Twitter generated a firestorm of criticism that some erotic, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, feminist and progressive books were being excluded from Amazon’s sales rankings.
Various books and media were flagged as “adult content” (including children’s books, self-help books, non-fiction, and non-explicit fiction), with the result that works by established authors like E. M. Forster, Gore Vidal, Jeanette Winterson and D. H. Lawrence were now unranked.
The change first received publicity on the blog of author Mark R. Probst, who reproduced an e-mail from Amazon customer service describing a policy of de-ranking “adult” material.
However, Amazon later said that there was no policy of de-ranking LGBT material, and blamed the change first on a “glitch” and then on “an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error” that had affected 57,310 books.
Here’s the meat of Mary Hodder’s TechCrunch post: Read more
