Outdated racial stereotypes can mask subtler forms of bias

By Antony Page and and Michael J. Pitts


Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates’ arrest by the Cambridge, Mass., police is one that the media seems to be telling through the prism of 1960s race-relations — racist white cop intentionally targets black male. All that’s missing is the n-word or calling Gates “boy.” But while we don’t yet know all the facts, the emerging story perhaps presents a more modern version of America’s racial dilemma — what psychologists call unconscious or implicit racism.

At first blush, the Gates affair seemed to fit the simple racial paradigm that much of the baby boomer generation grew up with. Initially, we heard, white cop has report of African-American male breaking into house, white cop gives a hard time to African-American male, African-American male gets angered by shabby treatment, white cop (over)reacts with an arrest. Conclusion: one more racist white cop intentionally oppressing African-American males.

But perhaps the paradigm doesn’t fit. The white cop, James Crowley, lacks the traditional racist profile. His most famous action is not some scandal where he was accused of beating an innocent minority victim but the attempted resuscitation of an African-American NBA player. Not only that, but at the police academy Crowley teaches a course where cadets learn how to avoid racial profiling. Even President Barack Obama acknowledges that Crowley is apparently an “outstanding police officer.”

So what we appear to have is a good cop, one sensitive to racial issues, yet who still chose to arrest at his home a middle-aged African-American man, who even uses a cane to get around — how could that be? Well, perhaps the white cop is not intentionally being racist but is still unconsciously discriminating.

Psychological research over the last couple of decades reveals that good people who don’t intend to discriminate sometimes act in discriminatory ways. What we now know is that both conscious and unconscious processes impact an individual’s decision-making and that racial bias can be automatic, unconscious and definitely unintentional.

Unfortunately, even when we consciously reject the negative racial stereotypes we’ve all heard about African-Americans, they can still affect our unconscious processing of information. The same actions, such as a person objecting to police questioning, may be interpreted in different ways. An African-American’s statements, for example, may be interpreted as more aggressive or hostile, and thus justifying an arrest, simply because of the speaker’s race even though the police officer, genuinely believes the arrest is legitimate and harbors no racial animus.

Moreover, unconscious racial bias plays a bigger role in discretionary decisions that must be made quickly and with little information and is also more likely to operate when the decision-maker is stressed, and faced with hostility and aggression. So, as one computer simulation has shown, cops are more likely to pull the trigger when making a split-second decision about whether to shoot or not shoot an African-American.

Looking at the Gates affair, Crowley, in a stressful situation, had to make a judgment call — to arrest or not arrest Gates. He had to make that decision on the spot, without the chance to calmly deliberate, and he knew little about Gates other than the fact that he was an African-American male, suspected of breaking into a house, was a professor at Harvard, and was acting (in an albeit justifiably) upset manner. Here, then, is a prime situation where unconscious bias could operate.

Unfortunately, while researchers have uncovered the existence of unconscious bias, there are no quick and easy solutions. Stifling unconscious bias takes effort. Many deny that unconscious bias exists, or more commonly, deny that they are affected. However, one way that might help mitigate unconscious bias is to make decision-makers aware that it exists.

Which is why, so far, this would seem to be a missed opportunity on the media’s part. Instead of just filtering this through the “old-school” simplistic view of race discrimination — a type of discrimination that we do not deny still exists — the media should seize this opportunity to educate the public about a more modern understanding of racism. Perhaps if we’re no longer demonizing the other side as intentionally racist, we could start to focus our energy in improving race relations in a more productive direction.

Antony Page and Michael J. Pitts are associate professors at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis and have written several articles about unconscious bias and the law.