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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: It's time for a vault episode. So I think today

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Speaker 1: we're running an episode that you and Julie did back

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Speaker 1: in When was this one? Yeah, this would have been March.

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Speaker 1: And you know it's a pretty serious and sober episode

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Speaker 1: titled The Gordian Knot of Race. The deals with a

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Speaker 1: lot of issues related to unconscious racial bias. So this

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Speaker 1: episode is obviously a few years old at this point,

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Speaker 1: but the content holds up really well. I think it's

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Speaker 1: just as relatable today as it was. Alright, well, I

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Speaker 1: guess let's jump right into the episode. Welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Julie duck List. And as promised,

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Speaker 1: this episode is all about race. That's right, we promised

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Speaker 1: to bring you the Gordian Knot of race and Gordian Knot.

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Speaker 1: We use that phrase because in Greek and Roman mythology,

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Speaker 1: the Gordian knot was an extremely complicated knot tied by

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Speaker 1: Gordius a king in Asia Minor. And this knot has

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Speaker 1: come to symbolize a complicated and seemingly unsolvable problem. But

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Speaker 1: here's the crux here. If you want to solve it,

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Speaker 1: it requires novel and bold actions. And we're trotting out

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Speaker 1: this metaphor today because we're discussing the Gordian knot of

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Speaker 1: race as it exists here in the United States. Yes,

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Speaker 1: here in the United States where we have a black president.

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Speaker 1: And as will discuss how I just framed, the problem

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Speaker 1: is in itself a slippery slope of logic that leads

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Speaker 1: to questions like, well, how can racial inequity exist in

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Speaker 1: a country with a black president? Right? Because this is

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Speaker 1: the idea that, after all this outward evidence of racism,

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Speaker 1: isn't there anymore? Right, that we feel like maybe racism

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Speaker 1: has receded into the shadows and something like the klu

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Speaker 1: Klex Klan. They're not hanging out visibly anymore at least,

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Speaker 1: and that leads us to something even more pernicious, and

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Speaker 1: it's called racism without racists. Yeah. You know, you mentioned

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Speaker 1: the bold actions of solving the Gordian not earlier. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And of course the classic example of that is that

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Speaker 1: Alexander the Great shows up and just cuts it in

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Speaker 1: half and says, hey, I solved or not? And you

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Speaker 1: know that works in the Greek myth. But with with

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Speaker 1: with racism, you see some you see a number of

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Speaker 1: different false uh solvings of the of the riddles, of

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Speaker 1: false unravelings of the knot. For instance, the sort of

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Speaker 1: Alexander the Great move of cutting it in half is

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Speaker 1: sort of like saying, hey, well, look, there are no

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Speaker 1: overt racist in my immediate sphere of influences, there are

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Speaker 1: no overt race this in my workplace. Um. And and

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Speaker 1: then in this leads to people saying such kind of

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Speaker 1: stupendous things as, oh, we live in a post racist world,

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Speaker 1: a post race world. And of course all of that's

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Speaker 1: uh completely false, um. Because even if you do not

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Speaker 1: have overt racism, if you don't have uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: hate groups in your immediate midst um with you know,

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Speaker 1: outright and open discrimination in your workplace, etcetera, you still

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Speaker 1: have the reality of unsuspecting people who see the world

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Speaker 1: through a racially biased lens. That's right, because you have

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Speaker 1: subtler forms of racism, and it persists within the cultural fabric.

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Speaker 1: As we'll discussed today. Sun Heel Milanovon is a professor

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Speaker 1: of economics at Harvard, and in an opinion piece for

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Speaker 1: The New York Times, he articulated this problem of racism

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Speaker 1: without racist quote ugly. Pockets of conscious bigotry remain in

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Speaker 1: this country, but most discrimination is more insidious. The urge

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Speaker 1: to find and call out the biggot is powerful, and

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Speaker 1: doing so is satisfying, but it is also a way

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Speaker 1: to let ourselves off the hook. Rather than point fingers outward,

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Speaker 1: we should look inward and examine how, despite best intentions,

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Speaker 1: we discriminate in ways big and small. So while there

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Speaker 1: may be good intentions behind this notion of sin no color,

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Speaker 1: it actually does a disservice to trying to achieve equality. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I think that Stephen Colbert always did a great

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Speaker 1: job of that on the Colbert Report. Um he had

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Speaker 1: the recurring bit where he would say, I don't see race.

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Speaker 1: People tell me I'm white because X, and then there

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Speaker 1: would be some sort of punchline that implied the the

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Speaker 1: the the innate racism of Stephen Colbert, the character um

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Speaker 1: because yet to say that you don't see race, that

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Speaker 1: race doesn't factor into your uh, into your daily life

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Speaker 1: even into your perception of those around you. It is ludicrous,

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Speaker 1: uh because when you when is we're going to discuss

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Speaker 1: in this episode, when you when you look below the surface,

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Speaker 1: there is there is a lot going on there. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's there is a tremendous amount of a scientific research

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Speaker 1: that shows that people do uh notice race, gender, wealth, weight, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: That we see all of these things, even if we

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Speaker 1: don't want to believe that we see these things, we

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Speaker 1: see them and we factor them into our judgments of others.

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Speaker 1: Right now, according to psychologist Daniel Kahman, we think both

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Speaker 1: fast and slow, fast meaning that we rely on patterns

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Speaker 1: that determine unconscious decision making that we call sometimes intuitive

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Speaker 1: judgment and slow meaning the couple of factors that were

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Speaker 1: actively consciously weighing when we're making a decision. And within

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Speaker 1: this configuration there is something called implicit bias and that

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Speaker 1: plays directly into fast thinking. Now, the National Center for

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Speaker 1: State Courts Rights that, unlike explicit bias, which reflects the

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Speaker 1: attitudes or beliefs that one endorses at a conscious level,

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Speaker 1: implicit bias is the bias and judgment and or behavior

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Speaker 1: that results from subtle cognitive processes so implicit attitudes and

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Speaker 1: implicit stereotypes, and that they often operate at a level

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Speaker 1: below conscious awareness and without intentional control, And that these

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Speaker 1: sort of implicit biases they develop over time, and usually

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Speaker 1: it's because of some sort of social connection. This can

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Speaker 1: be your family and the sort of implicit bias that

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Speaker 1: they may have that you have assumed for yourself. It

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Speaker 1: can be your friends, it can be um, just people

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Speaker 1: that you even look up to and what their views are. Now,

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Speaker 1: you could also have it from an accumulation of personal experience,

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Speaker 1: and um, I'm talking about experiences that connect certain racial

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Speaker 1: groups with fear or other negative effects. The National Center

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Speaker 1: for State Courts talks about a study in which white

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Speaker 1: individuals who scored highly on measures of implicit racial bias

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Speaker 1: also reacted to images of unfamiliar black faces with stronger

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Speaker 1: amygdala activation. So we've talked about this before. The amygdala

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Speaker 1: is associated with emotional learning and fear conditioning. So you

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Speaker 1: see implicit bias played out in that way, those kind

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Speaker 1: of associations which played directly into brain processes. And then

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Speaker 1: you know that people share a common social understanding of stereotypes.

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Speaker 1: So again here is implicit bias kind of leaking into

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Speaker 1: the cultural fabrics. So maybe you don't subscribe to that

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Speaker 1: particular stereotype, but the fact that it's in our culture

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Speaker 1: and it may be bandied about means that you may

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Speaker 1: be passively absorbing it into your own worldview. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: they're like symbols, which we've discussed at length before. The

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Speaker 1: symbol is out there, and the symbol is is informing

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Speaker 1: your mind uh at times at a subconscious level. And

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Speaker 1: the same can be said of any of these, uh,

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Speaker 1: these various stereotypes for different racial groups. Again, patterns at

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Speaker 1: the subconscious level. And then there's something called implicit egoism,

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Speaker 1: which is basically we that we tend to prefer people

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Speaker 1: like ourselves, however we define that, and at the surface

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Speaker 1: level that tends to be how we look. So there

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Speaker 1: there are those different ways that implicit bias begins to

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Speaker 1: seep into our lives. Now, when it comes to measuring

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Speaker 1: implicit bias, we have a very handy and uh and

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Speaker 1: proven tool at our disposal. Um. It comes to us

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Speaker 1: from University of Washington psychology professor Anthony Greenwald created the

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Speaker 1: Implicit Association Test or the I A T. And and

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Speaker 1: he and a few associates. Uh, they put it out there.

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Speaker 1: They they continue to develop it. And since they initially

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Speaker 1: rolled it out, the test has been used in more

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Speaker 1: than one thousand research studies around the world, and more

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Speaker 1: than ten million versions of the tests have been completed.

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Speaker 1: UM at an internet site that we're gonna have a

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Speaker 1: call out for later. UM with the I A t

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Speaker 1: and and I encourage everyone to take it. We we

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Speaker 1: both took it and it's a very it's a very

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Speaker 1: interesting experience. Uh. And you'll see wines I explain it here. Um.

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Speaker 1: You have to categorize a sequence of words or images

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Speaker 1: such as a black face or a white face, and

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Speaker 1: words uh as such as good bad by pressing one

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Speaker 1: of two labeled buttons. So, for instance, you might be

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Speaker 1: instructed to press the left button when you see a

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Speaker 1: black face or whenever a negative word appears. Okay, So, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, black face shows up, push that left button.

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Speaker 1: The word distrustful shows up, you push that left button,

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Speaker 1: then the right button, then you press the right button

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Speaker 1: when you see a white face or a positive words

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Speaker 1: a white face, trustworthy or some word of that nature.

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Speaker 1: But then they flip it around. Okay, so you have

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Speaker 1: to press one button for black positive and one for

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Speaker 1: white negative. Um. And then and this is where the

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Speaker 1: the interference effects come into play. Individuals who associate black

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Speaker 1: with bad will respond much more slowly when black and

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Speaker 1: good share the same response button. Now, UM, I don't

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Speaker 1: know if you have the same experience when you were

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Speaker 1: taking this online, but uh, and again I was coming

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Speaker 1: into this after reading about how it works. But you

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Speaker 1: really do kind of feel your mind being pulled in

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Speaker 1: half on some of these where you're having to to

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Speaker 1: stop and think, all right, wait, which which side am

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Speaker 1: I am I associating this word with versus versus the

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Speaker 1: other side. Yeah, it's kind of like the Stroop test

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Speaker 1: in that way because it really, uh, it really takes

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Speaker 1: a lot of attention because you already have that pattern

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Speaker 1: down and so they begin messing with the pattern. And

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Speaker 1: that's where they find that space where they can kind

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Speaker 1: of ferret out your the delay time, right, and also

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Speaker 1: your choices because sometimes you'll get it wrong and it

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Speaker 1: would tell you, right, give me the wrong choice. Um,

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Speaker 1: And it gives you a bit of insight, but there

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Speaker 1: also gives you, I think about five ten questions about

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Speaker 1: just your general feelings about politics. Right. And then later

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Speaker 1: on more specifically about how you feel about UM Europeans

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Speaker 1: versus African Americans and so on and so forth. So

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Speaker 1: some of it you do have to try to bring

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Speaker 1: a bit of awareness to what your feelings are and

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Speaker 1: you have to be really honest about it too. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it doesn't take long at all to to fill

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Speaker 1: it out. But it's amazing how much depth it has,

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Speaker 1: especially you know, if you're just comparing it to you know,

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Speaker 1: which X men are you tests on on on the internet. UM. Now, again,

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Speaker 1: since this was initially rolled out, UM has been used

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Speaker 1: a lot, and the and the status really back up

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Speaker 1: its effectiveness. UM. In fact, when it comes to race,

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Speaker 1: seventy percent of those who took a version of the

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Speaker 1: test that measures racial attitudes have an unconscious or implicit

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Speaker 1: preference for white people compared to blacks. And you can

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Speaker 1: compare that to a twenty percent self reporting percentile. So

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Speaker 1: the individuals who who took this particular version of the

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Speaker 1: test of them are are are self reporting that they

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Speaker 1: prefer the white uh faces, that they have a preference

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Speaker 1: for the white faces, but seventy or actually proving that

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Speaker 1: out based on their delay times, so the reporting isn't

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Speaker 1: adding up to what their actual actions are, right, and

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Speaker 1: this shows how they're really cutting into with this test.

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Speaker 1: They're really cutting into that implicit bias, to that level

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Speaker 1: of bias that we're not aware of in our daily life,

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Speaker 1: that's just going on under the surface of our conscious cognition. Now,

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Speaker 1: a two thousand nine meta analysis headed by Anthony Greenwald,

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Speaker 1: who of course UH invented the thing. UH, looked at

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Speaker 1: one and twenty two published and unpublished reports of a

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Speaker 1: hundred and eighty four different research studies, and they found

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Speaker 1: that in socially sensitive areas, especially black white interracial behavior,

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Speaker 1: the test had significantly greater predictive value than self reports. Again,

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Speaker 1: that's seventy verses twenty and we mentioned overall UH. This

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Speaker 1: meta analysis study looked at numerous uses of the I

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Speaker 1: A T including consumer preference, black white interracial behavior, personality differences,

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Speaker 1: clinical phenomena, alcohol and drug use, non racial inner group ahavior,

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Speaker 1: gender and sexual orientation, close relationships, and political preferences, and

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Speaker 1: across all nine of these areas, measures of the test

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Speaker 1: were useful in predicting social behavior. Now, it's worth noting

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Speaker 1: that in consumer and political preferences, both self reporting and

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Speaker 1: implicit measures effectively predicted the behavior, but self reports had

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Speaker 1: significantly greater predictive validity. So again, this test kind of

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Speaker 1: serves to to prove out how much of our decision

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Speaker 1: making and judgment UH is taking place below the surface.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the good news is that implicit by us

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Speaker 1: is malleable to some degree, and it's responsive to the

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Speaker 1: person's motives and environments. And we'll talk about that more later. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about empathy, which is, of course is one

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Speaker 1: of the most important factors in untying and unraveling that

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Speaker 1: hideous knot. Yeah, and and also an important factor in

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Speaker 1: just being one of the cornerstones of humanity, right, Like

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Speaker 1: that's part of the whole cooperative where we're all signing

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Speaker 1: into this agreement that we're going to try to help

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Speaker 1: and support each other as much as possible. Well, not

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Speaker 1: all of us have signed that, but you know, generally

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Speaker 1: that's the idea in trying to survive as a species.

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Speaker 1: So you would think that empathy would be hardwired in

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Speaker 1: all of us into some degree. It is, but it

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Speaker 1: maybe that levels of empathy exist now. In a two

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Speaker 1: thousand and thirteen study called Racial Bias and Perceptions of

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Speaker 1: Others pain by try Walter at all. This idea of

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Speaker 1: the racial empathy gap was explored. The researchers as participants

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Speaker 1: to rate how much pain they would feel in eighteen

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Speaker 1: different scenarios. We're talking about anywhere from stubbing your toe

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Speaker 1: to getting shampoo in your eye. Yeah, the worst is

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Speaker 1: the worst. Uh. Then they rated how another person a

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Speaker 1: randomly assigned photo of an experimental target would feel in

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Speaker 1: the same situation. And sometimes the target was white, sometimes black,

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Speaker 1: and each experiment, the researchers found that white participants, black participants,

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Speaker 1: and nurses and nursing students assumed that blacks felt less

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Speaker 1: pain than whites, and the researchers were really interested in that,

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Speaker 1: particularly like why why other black people might think that

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Speaker 1: black people experience pain less and so um. They did

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Speaker 1: some follow up studies trying to drill down a bit

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Speaker 1: more as to the cause here, and they found that

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Speaker 1: the more privilege assumed of the target, the more pain

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Speaker 1: the participants perceived for that person. So this is very

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Speaker 1: closely tied to race because we're talking about privilege and um,

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Speaker 1: you know, the socio economic status of that person and

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Speaker 1: the reason for this misperception of pain. This idea that

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Speaker 1: black people could endure more pain or have less pain

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Speaker 1: was directly related to this assumption that that because black

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Speaker 1: people face more hardships, they wouldn't feel as much pain.

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Speaker 1: This was their conclusion. So basically, at the subconscious level,

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Speaker 1: the brain is saying that person has experienced more pain

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Speaker 1: in their life probably and therefore they're a little more

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Speaker 1: used to pain. They can they can handle it right.

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Speaker 1: And again they bring up the semantics here because they're

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Speaker 1: talking more about privileged people versus nonprivileged people. But they're

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Speaker 1: also seeing the racial bias here because the assumption with

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Speaker 1: the stereotype also is that the less privileged person would

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Speaker 1: be the black person. Gotcha. Now, Additional studies have looked

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Speaker 1: into this situation, including a two thousand ten Italian study

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Speaker 1: from Seppends University in Rome. And this study took both

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Speaker 1: Italians and UH and and black Italians Italians of African descent,

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Speaker 1: and they watched short films depicting needles penetrating a person's

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Speaker 1: hand or a Q tip gently touching the same spot

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Speaker 1: UH and then they measured their their in their their

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Speaker 1: their empathetic response to that bit of footage. So the

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Speaker 1: results which line up with what we've been discussing here,

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Speaker 1: people watching the painful episode responded in a way that

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Speaker 1: was specific to the particular muscle they saw being stimulated.

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Speaker 1: When the film character was of the same race, but

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Speaker 1: those of a different race, uh, it didn't it didn't

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Speaker 1: evoke the same senseo motor response. Now, they conducted further

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Speaker 1: studies where the researchers tested individuals responses to pain inflicted

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Speaker 1: on models with violet hands. Now that I read this

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Speaker 1: is violent ones initially in the study, which really threw

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Speaker 1: me off, but violet colored hands. So they essentially are

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Speaker 1: throwing in a third non existent race of violet colored

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Speaker 1: people here. Okay, So in and in these cases, the

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Speaker 1: participants empathetic response was restored. So in other word, since

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Speaker 1: they have no script for what violet colored people would,

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Speaker 1: uh would deal with in terms of pain in their life,

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Speaker 1: they just revert to normal. They're like me, which is

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Speaker 1: an interesting and interesting fact to it. And then there's

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Speaker 1: a two thousand and fourteen University of Virginia psychology study

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Speaker 1: that looked at children. Specifically, they looked at American children

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Speaker 1: between seven and ten, and specifically they looked at American children,

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Speaker 1: and they found that children between seven and ten reported

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Speaker 1: that black children feel less pain than white children. Uh

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Speaker 1: So here we see explicit bias emerging um in early childhood. Now,

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Speaker 1: there's zero evidence for racial bias in this study among

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Speaker 1: study participants at the age of five and younger, but

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Speaker 1: the bias began showing up among participants at the age

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Speaker 1: of seven and then became prominent at the age of ten.

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Speaker 1: So this is this is an area that the researchers

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Speaker 1: are still exploring because obviously, as we've discussed, we have

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Speaker 1: the the explanation that well, it's based on on what

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Speaker 1: you you think the the personal history for an individual

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Speaker 1: of this race is and where they fall on the

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Speaker 1: socioeconomic spectrum. But it's uh, you know, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: a lot to expect that level of of judgment going

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Speaker 1: on with children that are seven to ten, Right, So,

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Speaker 1: to what extent is that going on, or to what

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Speaker 1: extent is this tied to explicit egoism. It's a good question.

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Speaker 1: It's just it's a pretty stunning study because to know

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Speaker 1: that children that young would be developing those ideas and

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Speaker 1: expressing them, at least unconsciously or even overtly, is really

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Speaker 1: disturbing and I think kind of parts the curtain of

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Speaker 1: the curtains of the brain to give us more insight

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Speaker 1: into how things are working under cover. Jason Silverstein and

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Speaker 1: his article on this very topic wrote, quote, the racial

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Speaker 1: empathy gap helps explain disparities and everything from pain management

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Speaker 1: to the criminal justice system. But the problem isn't just

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Speaker 1: that will disregard the pain of black people. It's somehow

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Speaker 1: even worse. The problem is that the pain isn't even felt.

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Speaker 1: In other words, empathy is not being engaged. And when

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Speaker 1: empathy isn't being engaged, then you're objectifying that person. And

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Speaker 1: that's that's where your your cornerstone of humanity is crumbling. Yeah, so,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I mean it plays into everything from you

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Speaker 1: see a story about some sort of misfortune happening to

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Speaker 1: an individual of another race on television, and you're less

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Speaker 1: involved in the story. Uh. It plays into your just

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Speaker 1: your your ability to interact with everyone around you, like,

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Speaker 1: are you engaging with the same level of empathy? Are

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Speaker 1: you on the same page? Are you giving the same

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Speaker 1: value to everyone in your surroundings? No? And that's what

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Speaker 1: was so interesting about that implicit association test that I

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Speaker 1: a t that I took, is that Yeah, I uh

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Speaker 1: suspected that I would have some racial biases, but and

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Speaker 1: I came out as slight on the test. They don't say, hey,

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Speaker 1: you're a racist, say that you have a slight preference

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Speaker 1: for European Americans. Um, but still like that's it's unsettling

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Speaker 1: to think that this may have been playing out in

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Speaker 1: different ways that I operate in the world. And so

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Speaker 1: that's why I think it's so important for people to

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Speaker 1: try to to drill down a bit into themselves and

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Speaker 1: figure out how it might be playing out, because this

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Speaker 1: would make the difference. You have searched for a house before, yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: a couple of times. Yeah, the grueling work of trying

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Speaker 1: to find some sort of housing. And it turns out

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Speaker 1: that again, the racial bias exists here in the housing market.

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Speaker 1: John Taylor, the president and chief executive the National Community

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Speaker 1: Reinvestment Coalition, which helps improve housing and underserved communities, told

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Speaker 1: The New York Times in an interview that polling shows

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Speaker 1: that many Americans think financially stable customers have the same

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Speaker 1: opportunities to obtain good housing regard lists of race. Again,

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Speaker 1: this is the c no color logic, right, and this

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Speaker 1: just isn't so because there is a two thousand and

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Speaker 1: thirteen national study that was commissioned by the Federal Department

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Speaker 1: of Housing and Urban Development, and they found some startling inequities. Um.

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Speaker 1: They had eight thousand tests. Here, they had one white

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Speaker 1: and one minority tester of the same gender and age,

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Speaker 1: posing as equally well qualified renters or buyers, visiting the

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Speaker 1: same housing provider or agent, and in more than half

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Speaker 1: of the test cases, both testers were shown the same

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Speaker 1: number of apartments or homes, but in cases where one

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Speaker 1: tester was shown more homes or apartments, the white tester

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Speaker 1: was usually favored, leading to a higher number of units

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Speaker 1: shown to whites and overall, black perspective, runners were presented

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Speaker 1: eleven percent fewer rentals than whites, Hispanics about twelve percent

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Speaker 1: fewer rentals, and Asians about ten percent fewer rentals, and

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Speaker 1: as person spective buyers, blacks were presented presented seventeen percent

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Speaker 1: fewer homes and Asians fewer homes. So UM, what's interesting

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Speaker 1: about this is that it plays out in individual scenarios,

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Speaker 1: and you can look at that information if you want.

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Speaker 1: You can see these individual scenarios where UM, once the UH,

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Speaker 1: the real estate agent found out that this person was black,

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Speaker 1: or Hispanic they would actually cancel the appointments, so there

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Speaker 1: were canceled appointments and so on and so forth. But

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Speaker 1: what they also found is that white testers were more

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Speaker 1: frequently offered lower rents, told that deposits and other moving

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Speaker 1: costs were negotiable or were quoted a lower price, and

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Speaker 1: taking into account fees, deposits from rents, apartments were more

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Speaker 1: likely to cost white slightly less in the first year

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Speaker 1: rental than blacks might pay. So it's not it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's an issue of access to housing, but it's also

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Speaker 1: an issue to the cost of housing as well. And

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Speaker 1: by the way, these tests were performed in twenty eight

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Speaker 1: metropolitan areas with no substantial difference across cities or regions.

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Speaker 1: And it's not just housing. There was a study by

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Speaker 1: Ian Iris and Peter Siegelman, and they found that more

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Speaker 1: than three hundred paired audits at new car dealerships revealed

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Speaker 1: that dealers quoted significantly lower prices to white males than

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Speaker 1: to black or female test buyers, and they were using

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Speaker 1: the identical scripted bargaining strategies for the same model of car. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so there was no variation in here because they were

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Speaker 1: trying to do the exact UH replicated scenario over and

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Speaker 1: over again. The only difference, of course was gender and race,

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Speaker 1: and the black test buyers were offered initial prices roughly

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Speaker 1: seven hundred dollars higher, and they received far smaller concessions.

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Speaker 1: So you know, this sort of bells and whistles that

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Speaker 1: a dealer might throw in on a car for you.

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Speaker 1: You know, and we, of course we also see implicit

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Speaker 1: bias come into play in the workplace, whether one gets

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Speaker 1: a job or not, whether one is paid an appropriate

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Speaker 1: amount and amount that is on the level with other

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Speaker 1: individuals with the same skill set, expertise, etcetera. UM. For instance,

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Speaker 1: just to look at us, some quick census stats from

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Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen U S Census stats, UM, black men

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Speaker 1: were paid seventy of what white men were paid. White women,

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Speaker 1: by the way, we're paid seventy eight percent of what

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Speaker 1: white men were paid, and UH African American women were

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Speaker 1: paid sixty of what white men were paid. But that's

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Speaker 1: once the paycheck is actually in play. When it comes

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Speaker 1: to even just getting a job and having the chance

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Speaker 1: to have a fair shot at a position, UM, the

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Speaker 1: bias comes into play in some some really startling ways. Uh.

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Speaker 1: There are a couple of studies that look at this. One.

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Speaker 1: It's a two thousand three study titled are Emily and

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Speaker 1: Greg more Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment

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Speaker 1: on labor market discrimination. This was published in American Economic Review,

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Speaker 1: and it casts some in resting light on all of this. Now,

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Speaker 1: what they did. The researchers mailed out thousands of resumes

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Speaker 1: to employers with job openings and and measured which ones

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Speaker 1: were selected for callbacks for interviews. Some of these were

430
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 1: randomly tagged with stereotypically African American names, such as the

431
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: title suggests Jamal or Lakisha, and some with stereotypically white

432
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 1: names like like Emily or Greg. Okay, So what they

433
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 1: found was that the same resume was roughly fifty percent

434
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 1: more likely to result in a callback for an interview

435
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: if they had a white name. And then, in two

436
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: thousand nine, another study actually tried this out in person.

437
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 1: They sent in actual people for low wage job interviews,

438
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: identical resumes, identical interview training, and yet they found that

439
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 1: African American applicants with no criminal record were offered jobs

440
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 1: at the at a rate as low as white applicants

441
00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 1: with a criminal record. Now, in terms of discriminating against

442
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:04,679
Speaker 1: African American names, we can also look to healthcare and

443
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:09,440
Speaker 1: we see a study supporting this bias. At two national conferences,

444
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 1: when seven and twenty doctors were shown patient histories and

445
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:17,640
Speaker 1: asked to make judgments about heart disease, they were much

446
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 1: less likely to recommend cardiac catholization, which would be a

447
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:26,160
Speaker 1: really helpful procedure to black patients, even when their medical

448
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: files were statistically identical to those of white patients. Now,

449
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: there's another study about racial bias in healthcare, and this

450
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 1: one that takes more of a generational approach, and it's interesting. Um,

451
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 1: there were two d two first year medical students at

452
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:49,479
Speaker 1: Johns Hopkins who participated in implicit association tests. All right,

453
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 1: that was the test that we talked about earlier. Sixty

454
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: had an unconscious biased toward whites and four innately favored blacks.

455
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 1: They also determined the eighties six percent of the students

456
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:05,439
Speaker 1: had subconsciously favored upper class people. Again, there's that that

457
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 1: privileged bias there, while just three percent showed a preference

458
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 1: for those of a lower cap class. So here's the

459
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 1: thing about the first year med school students. They found

460
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:19,160
Speaker 1: that the unconscious preferences of students did not affect how

461
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 1: they assessed or treated patients of various races and incomes

462
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:24,879
Speaker 1: depicted in the scenarios. And this is good news because

463
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 1: what this is saying is that this generation may have

464
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: been exposed to educational curriculum focused on cultural competency and

465
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: that helped them to improve their awareness in the management

466
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 1: of their unconscious preferences. So while the racial bias existed,

467
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 1: their behaviors stemming from it, uh, we're not affected, which

468
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:50,080
Speaker 1: is a bit of a bright spot in all of

469
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: this information. Yeah, I mean that's that's definitely a bright spot.

470
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 1: But yeah, when you start breaking down like all the

471
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: ways that that racial bias explicit and implicit um disadvantage

472
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 1: an individual, I mean, it's really staggering because we've talked

473
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 1: about studies that have looked into how it affects the

474
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: purchase of a vehicle, the renning of an apartment, acquiring

475
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: a job, but other studies have looked at how it

476
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:20,960
Speaker 1: negatively impacts a person of of colors ability to get

477
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: a response from their legislator. Here back about research opportunities

478
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: at a university received fair treatment from a jury. Uh.

479
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: One study even found that a white hand holding an

480
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 1: iPod received more offers than a black hand holding the

481
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 1: same iPod on eBay. So yeah, it ends up impacting

482
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 1: like pretty much every area of your life, you know, healthcare, schools,

483
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: every and interaction comes with a potential handicap. All the

484
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: little things we in life that we take for granted,

485
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: and as well as the big things like dealing with

486
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: employment and and uh and and and law enforcement. It's

487
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 1: it's staggering. Well. And the housing thing I thought was

488
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 1: particularly unsettling because not only are people given less choices,

489
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: they were sometimes shuttled into different communities. And so you know,

490
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 1: the real estate agents or the real estate companies were

491
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: actually trying to get you know, the their black clients

492
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:22,760
Speaker 1: to go into black neighborhoods. And so this begins to

493
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 1: affect what your choices are in schools as well. And

494
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: so you see that play out as you say, all

495
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: these these little um, all these little choices combined with

496
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:35,959
Speaker 1: the big choices that are essentially stacked against you, at

497
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 1: the end of the day, that stacked just becomes massive

498
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: and overwhelming. Yeah, I mean, I I can't help but

499
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: think of things like this in Dungeons and Dragons terms,

500
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: it's like having a character sheet with all your stats

501
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 1: and then someone says, oh, just go ahead and knock

502
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 1: you know, five off of all your stats, you know,

503
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 1: all your your your your abilities, and your potential. That

504
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 1: would be grossly unfair in any you know, micro reality

505
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 1: of a game. But it's the kind of inequality that

506
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 1: is everywhere in the real world. Yeah, it's like that

507
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 1: dollar a bill analogy that we talked about in the

508
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 1: school to prison pipeline. You know, if you're if everybody's

509
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: at the starting line initially, and then you have to

510
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: keep taking steps back because you you're being handicapped, then

511
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: you're not going to get to that dollar bill as fast.

512
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: Right in that dollar bill represents your future. And moreover,

513
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: you have to then shoulder if you're a person of color,

514
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: you have to shoulder those stereotypes that are put upon you.

515
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 1: So there's also this expectation um that's an albatross psychologically,

516
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: and then it's playing itself out in these real world scenarios.

517
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: So it would seem that to change this, to have

518
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,520
Speaker 1: a paradigm change in racial biases, to try to get

519
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: to a place of equality, it would all hinge on

520
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 1: empathy again, the willingness to empathize, and nothing is a

521
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: greater motivator of empathy than someone trying to imagine what

522
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 1: it would be like for themselves. And of course we've

523
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 1: got to study for this, and of course it has

524
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: to do with a rubber hand. Again, I feel like

525
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 1: the rubber hand study just keeps popping up. Two thousand

526
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: and thirteen study conducted by the European Research Console and

527
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 1: published in Cognition used this rubber hand illusion to get

528
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 1: participants in the mindset of one another, and it's really effective.

529
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: We've talked about it before. It plays into something called

530
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 1: pro pre aceptive drift, and that's where your mind essentially

531
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: adopts the fake limb as its own and then reacts

532
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:38,479
Speaker 1: to it when the fake hand is touched, while at

533
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 1: the same time the experimenter is touching the participant's own hand,

534
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 1: which is hidden out of you. So that's how this

535
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: set up this illusion works. Now using Caucasian participants, the

536
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 1: researchers in this case tested the participants implicit attitudes towards

537
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 1: people with dark skin. Then they used a dark skinned

538
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,400
Speaker 1: rubber hand to make them feel as if was their

539
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: own hand afterwards, They tested participants racial attitudes after the experiment,

540
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,959
Speaker 1: and the results, well, the more intense the participants illusion

541
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 1: of owning the dark skin rubber hand, the more positive

542
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 1: their racial attitudes came or became afterward. And it's because

543
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 1: this illusion created an empathy overlap, creating less differences in

544
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 1: the mind of the non white participants, getting them to

545
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 1: that place of empathy that they needed to be in. Yeah,

546
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 1: I mean so much of what we're talking about here

547
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: just brings me back to the the admittedly tired and

548
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 1: worn out analogy. Uh, don't judge a book book by

549
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: its cover, right, But yet, as we've discussed, that's that's

550
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 1: what our brain does. Our brain has a certain economy

551
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,520
Speaker 1: to it. It has to process all of the stimuli

552
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 1: at at a pretty fast rate. So it ends up

553
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 1: judging books on covers because that is it sometimes an

554
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 1: effective way of figuring out what's inside of a book.

555
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 1: But but if we can act really stop to consider

556
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 1: what's behind the book, to consider to at least flip

557
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: it over to read the back, right, Uh, you have

558
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 1: a lot more empathy. You I'll have a lot more

559
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 1: understanding of what's going on, and you have even a

560
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 1: potentially a better ability to just distinguish um. We see

561
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:18,960
Speaker 1: a lot of this in law enforcement um and and granted,

562
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 1: the whole it's the whole discussion of law enforcement and

563
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 1: race is an entire topic unto itself, but you do

564
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:26,840
Speaker 1: see a lot of research coming out of that area.

565
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: Two thousand nine, Brown University and University of Victoria researchers

566
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:34,319
Speaker 1: developed a new measurement system and protocol, which they call

567
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: it Effective Lexical Priming Scores or ALPS, to train Caucasian

568
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 1: subjects to recognize different African American faces um and it's uh.

569
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 1: It's has a certain amount of common with the I

570
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 1: T that we we already discussed. It's a lot of

571
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:52,359
Speaker 1: looking at faces and then teaching the individual to sort

572
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:56,279
Speaker 1: of stop and look beyond uh, their initial judgment call

573
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:58,799
Speaker 1: of that face. Essentially, in other words, teaching people to

574
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:02,839
Speaker 1: notice the different between the beneath or behind the all

575
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 1: too easy classification of race, which is again, yes, looking

576
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,319
Speaker 1: beyond the cover of that book. And it's as you said,

577
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: there there is a kind of pattern recognition that works

578
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. Again, it's that fast, slow thinking that

579
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 1: we can't necessarily help because that's that's how our brains work,

580
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:25,439
Speaker 1: but we can help it in slowing down and recognizing

581
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 1: that our racial biases exists, so that the next time

582
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 1: that we go through that process, we've tagged it and

583
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:34,719
Speaker 1: there's there's an awareness there. Yeah, I feel like this

584
00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:36,840
Speaker 1: is a common theme that comes up in the in

585
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:40,880
Speaker 1: the podcast. Is that, Like, so a mere awareness of

586
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 1: how you're thinking and why you're thinking is not, you know,

587
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,800
Speaker 1: a cure all, but it's so often the first step

588
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 1: in addressing the situation. Just realizing how you're dealing with

589
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,719
Speaker 1: the situation, how you're judging a situation, how you're processing

590
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:58,799
Speaker 1: the information that's coming into your brain. Well, especially if

591
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:01,279
Speaker 1: you consider it as a behavior, because we can change

592
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 1: our behaviors. Right. If you think that you're just inherently

593
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 1: going to be uh racially biased, then you're probably not

594
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 1: going to change your behaviors, right, because you think that's

595
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 1: a part of who you are. But if you realize

596
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:16,760
Speaker 1: that some of it is just this uh background noise

597
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 1: that you've absorbed culturally, maybe within your family, then you

598
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: understand that to be a sort of behavioral loop in

599
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 1: the brain that can be changed. Um we or did

600
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 1: everybody go and test your hidden bias? Uh? You can

601
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 1: do this at tolerance dot org. They're actually a bunch

602
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:40,360
Speaker 1: of different kinds of biases that you can test against gender, race, religion.

603
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 1: It's fascinating, um, and it will help you to come

604
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: to a better understanding of how you operate in the world. Yeah. Plus,

605
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 1: just the the process of taking the test is just

606
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 1: kind of it's a little mind blowing. Um. It's an

607
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,839
Speaker 1: interesting experience, So I recommend it even if you're just

608
00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:59,399
Speaker 1: into tests. Yeah, on a meta level, right, you can

609
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 1: see it because like I see the pattern, I see

610
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:03,880
Speaker 1: you messing with my brain and then they mess with

611
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: your brain and you're not quite sure if it happened.

612
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:11,480
Speaker 1: It's a it's nice trickery and test taking. Also, um,

613
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:16,520
Speaker 1: check out the excellent Radio and Love podcast episode called

614
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: silver Dollar. It's really fine storytelling. It is first person

615
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 1: narrative about what it is to be a subject of

616
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:27,439
Speaker 1: racial bias and how one man dealt with it. So

617
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:33,560
Speaker 1: I can't recommend that enough. It's great And if you

618
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 1: want to check that out, if you want to go

619
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 1: to that tolerance dot orga link that we mentioned. Both

620
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 1: of those will be included on the landing page for

621
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:45,720
Speaker 1: this podcast episode at Stuff to Blow your mind dot com.

622
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:48,720
Speaker 1: That's also where you will find all of our blog posts,

623
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: all of our videos, all of our stuff that we've done.

624
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:55,360
Speaker 1: That's the mothership. And want to reiterate to that again,

625
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 1: we did not cover law enforcement or the legal system

626
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 1: when it comes to racial bias. This is a topic

627
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: unto itself. Um So, if you have any thoughts on

628
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 1: this topic or any future ones that you would like

629
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 1: to recommend to us, you can do that by emailing

630
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 1: us at below the Mind at how staff works dot

631
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

632
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 1: Does it how staff works dot com