The other day, I
posted a quick note encouraging everyone to visit the History Colorado exhibit
on “Race: Are We So Different?” I hope some of you saw it—whether with or
without that bit of encouragement. Since then, I’ve come across two columns
that spoke exactly to some of the points raised in “Race.” The whole experience—the
exhibit, the articles—has been eye opening for me. Even though I’ve thought
quite a lot about these issues, I keep encountering new ideas that stretch me.
First, a few comments on the exhibit, then some reflections.
This was a traveling
exhibit created by the American Anthropological Society—which helps explain why
it’s so remarkably thoughtful and thought provoking. I was especially struck by
how well it avoids the easy slippage into focusing on racial categories in favor
of challenging the very concept of race itself. That’s a stretch for any of us
who were raised in a culture that categorizes people by race at every turn. And
to convey this idea, the exhibit has tons of interactive features and cleverly
designed, concrete ways to illustrate the point. But it didn’t avoid
challenging concepts in the service of simplicity.
For instance, the
introductory video dismantles the notion of race as a real “thing,” explaining
in straightforward terms how race doesn’t actually exist, how we have come to
believe that it does, and what are the underlying dynamics (economics, power,
privilege) that generated and still perpetuate the illusion of racial
categories. This isn’t necessarily an easy set of concepts to introduce to an
audience many of whom may have little experience in thinking deeply about race—except,
perhaps, to be well aware that racial bias is problematic.
The central theme
that runs through the exhibit is this: the social and economic differences that
we observe today are direct results of our belief that racial categories are real. Those beliefs have fueled
actions like these: generations of genocide practiced against Native residents
of America, theft of their land, and “re-education” efforts to “kill the Indian
and save the man”; wartime internment of Japanese citizens that required them
to leave behind their businesses, homes, and possessions; “red-lining” that
prevented non-white servicemen from using the GI bill to buy houses in the
suburbs, when home ownership in those areas would have allowed them entry to
the emerging American middle class. Over time, such differential treatment and
its material and psychological toll unavoidably resulted in social and economic
divisions marked by “race.”
I’ve known about
this train of thought for some time, this argument that categories of people
are invented rather than discovered. That once created, these categories have
real, concrete impacts on people sorted into them. It’s directly related to my
own academic work, so I get it, and I am convinced it’s correct. Still, once in
a while, someone presents it in a way that’s especially striking. A few of these
moments came up at this exhibit:
You could look at an individual from Kenya and an
individual from Norway and easily believe that they represent two different
races. But if you walked from Kenya to Norway, there would be no point along
your route where you could say, “Here it is—the dividing line where people
change from one race to another.” There is no dividing line because there are
no actual categories.
Imagine sitting on a bus going to, say, Disneyland.
Regardless of who the person next to you is, somewhere around 93-97% of your genes
are identical to theirs. Regardless of their nationality, racial or ethnic
category, or sex/gender.
We know that the human species first emerged in
Africa and migrated from there through the Middle East and into Asia, Europe, the
Far East, and the Americas. Only a small sample of the African population made
the trip—which means that only a small slice of the full human genome made the
trip. As a result, despite subsequent mixing, the largest proportion of human
variation is found among Africans—which is to say, Africans have virtually all
of the genes of other groups, and those other groups have just some of the genes that Africans possess.
Still, illusory
though race may be, these categories have huge impacts on our lives. Some of
that impact is seen in privilege, some in oppression. Some of it is overt, some
more subtle. Some of it is intentional, some is non-conscious. It’s this latter
sort that’s tricky: the “stuff” we all carry around that we aren’t even aware
of, biases that we would in fact deny if asked our conscious beliefs. One person
in a video at the exhibit called it the “smog of racism.” We all breathe it in
and are damaged by it, whether or not we acknowledge it. Acknowledging it, he
said, is the first step.
This is where those
two recent articles come in. The first was a New York Times column, “Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions”
by Sendhil Mullainathan, a Harvard economist. It’s a good, brief article—well worth the read, and you’ll
find it right here.
Mullainathan summarizes several
studies that show inadvertent racial bias, and then points out that most people
are unaware that they carry these biases. These attitudes are so well learned
that they affect our actions even without our knowing it. Here’s a telling line
from the column: “Even if, in our slow thinking,
we work to avoid discrimination, it can easily creep into our fast thinking.
Our snap judgments rely on all the associations we have—from fictional
television shows to news reports. They use stereotypes, both the accurate and
the inaccurate, both those we would want to use and ones we find repulsive.”
And
the second was another NYT column
called “Privilege of ‘Arrest without Incident’,” this one by regular columnist
Charles Blow—which you can read here.
Blow describes an incident that happened just over a week ago in which a white
woman drove around a southern city, shooting at people from her car, then leading
police on a chase and even aiming her gun at an officer. The news story reports
that she was “arrested without incident.” This is a good outcome, Blow agrees.
But, he asks, shouldn’t everyone have the right to an “arrest without incident.”
Consider the starkly different fate of black men who have done far less in
recent months but have not had that right, that privilege. He notes that every
case is different, and we cannot know all the relevant circumstances. Still, he
writes, “Police officers are human beings making split-second decisions—often
informed by fears—about when to use force and the degree of that force.” Those are the split-second decisions, the “fast thinking” that Mullainathan talks about in his column.
Hanging out in this topic area for a few days has
got me thinking about my own responses, the “fast thinking” moments when I
realize that I’m not finished with my own work here, not by far. How often I
try to wish away the thoughts I don’t want to have, the things I wish I’d
thought to say differently, the tiny actions that reveal my unthinking biases. And
how often I must miss those things, not realizing that my actions don’t always
match my conscious beliefs.
But smog causes lung damage whether or not we admit
it, and I’ve been breathing in racial smog for a lot of years. Acknowledging it
is just the first step.
© Janis
Bohan, 2010-2014. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to
the post.
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