Philosophy 5: Critical Thinking and Composition

Pierce College

Department of History, Philosophy, & Sociology

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lecture Notes for Alexander's The New Jim Crow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

" A survey was conducted in 1995 asking the following question: "Would you close your eyes for a second, envision a drug user, and describe that person to me?" The startling results were published in the Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education. Ninety-five percent of respondents pictured a black drug user, while only 5 percent imagined other racial groups.39 These results contrast sharply with the reality of drug crime in America. African Americans constituted only 15 percent of current drug users in 1995, and they constitute roughly the same percentage today. Whites constituted the vast majority of drug users then (and now), but almost no one pictured a white person when asked to imagine what a drug user looks like. The same group of respondents also perceived the typical drug trafficker as black."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Decades of cognitive bias research demonstrates that both unconscious and conscious biases lead to discriminatory actions, even when an individual does not want to discriminate.41 The quotation commonly attributed to Nietzsche, that "there is no immaculate perception," perfectly captures how cognitive schemas—thought structures—influence what we notice and how the things we notice get interpreted.42 Studies have shown that racial schemas operate not only as part of conscious, rational deliberations, but also automatically—without conscious awareness or intent.43 One study, for example, involved a video game that placed photographs of white and black individuals holding either a gun or other object (such as a wallet, soda can, or cell phone) into various photographic backgrounds. Participants were told to decide as quickly as possible whether to shoot the target. Consistent with earlier studies, participants were more likely to mistake a black target as armed when he was not, and mistake a white target as unarmed, when in fact he was armed.44 This pattern of discrimination reflected automatic, unconscious thought processes, not careful deliberations."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Most striking, perhaps, is the overwhelming evidence that implicit bias measures are disassociated from explicit bias measures.45 In other words, the fact that you may honestly believe that you are not biased against African Americans, and that you may even have black friends or relatives, does not mean that you are free from unconscious bias. Implicit bias tests may still show that you hold negative attitudes and stereotypes about blacks, even though you do not believe you do and do not want to.46"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Banaji Interview Transcript  

 

 

 

 

MAHZARIN BANAJI: So just to go back a little bit to the beginning, in the late 1990s, I did a very simple experiment with Tony Greenwald in which I was to quickly associate dark-skinned faces - faces of black Americans - with negative words. I had to use a computer key whenever I saw a black face or a negative word, like devil or bomb, war, things like that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAHZARIN BANAJI: And likewise, there was another key on the keyboard that I had to strike whenever I saw a white face or a good word, a word like love, peace, joy. I was able to do this very easily. But when the test then switched the pairing and I had to use the same computer key to identify a black face with good things and white faces and bad things, my fingers appeared to be frozen on the keyboard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAHZARIN BANAJI: I literally could not find the right - the right key. That experience is a humbling one. It is even a humiliating one because you come face to face with the fact that you are not the person you thought you were.