I dont see color Its a phrase some white people invoke when a conversation turns to race. Some apply it to Ferguson. Theyre not particularly troubled by the grand jurys decision to not issue an indictment. The racial identities of Darren Wilson, the white police officer, and Michael Brown, the black man he killed, shouldnt matter, they say. Let the legal system handle the decision without race-baiting. Justice should be colorblind. Science has bad news, though, for anyone who claims to not see race: Theyre deluding themselves, say several bias experts. A body of scientific research over the past 50 years shows that people notice not only race but gender, wealth, even weight. Professors at the University of Chicago and MIT sent 5,000 fictitious resumes in response to 1,300 help wanted ads. Each resume listed identical qualifications except for one variation -- some applicants had Anglo-sounding names such as Brendan, while others had black-sounding names such as Jamal. Applicants with Anglo-sounding names were 50% more likely to get calls for interviews than their black-sounding counterparts. Most of the people who didnt call Jamal were probably unaware that their decision was motivated by racial bias, says Daniel L. Ames, a UCLA researcher who has studied and written about bias. If you ask someone on the hiring committee, none of them are going to say theyre racially biased, Ames says. Theyre not lying. Theyre just wrong. When some whites talk about racism, they think its only personal -- what one person says or does to another. But many minorities and people who study race say racism can be impersonal, calculating, devoid of malice. Median income among black Americans is roughly half that of white Americans. But a narrow majority of whites believe blacks earn as much money as whites, and just 37% believe that theres a disparity between the two groups. Likewise, while 56% of blacks believe black Americans face significant discrimination, only 16% of whites agree, Many whites -- including many millennials -- believe discrimination against whites is more prevalent than discrimination against blacks. When protests erupted in Ferguson after the shooting this summer, various white and black residents tried to talk about race, but such discussions didnt bear fruit because of another reason: People refuse to admit their biases, research has consistently shown. Ross, author of Everyday Bias, cited a Dartmouth College survey where misinformed voters were presented with factual information that contradicted their political biases. There were voters, for example, who were disappointed with President Obamas economic record and believed he hadnt added any jobs during his presidency. They were shown a graph of nonfarm employment over the prior year that included a rising line indicating about a million jobs had been added. They were asked whether the number of people with jobs had gone up, down, or stayed about the same, Ross wrote. Many, looking straight at the graph, said down.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 01:19:51 +0000
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