Implicit Bias

Besides being explicit, biases can be implicit too.  Prejudices and stereotypes exist in our subconscious.  These hidden biases are called implicit bias.  Although implicit bias can be about myriad topics (gender, occupation, age), it can also promote racism.  Here is an explanation from Teaching Tolerance:

While the brain isn’t wired to be racist, it uses biases as unconscious defensive shortcuts.
As human beings, we are not naturally racist. But because of the way our brains are wired, we are naturally "groupist." The brain has a strong need for relatedness.
This wiring for “groupism” usually leads the dominant culture (the in-group) in a race-based society to create “out-groups” based on race, gender, language and sexual orientation. A system of inequity is maintained by negative social messages that dehumanize people of color, women and LGBT people as “the other.” For folks in the in-group, the brain takes in these messages and downloads them like software into the brain’s fear system. This leads to implicit bias: the unconscious attitudes and beliefs that shape our behavior toward someone perceived as inferior or as a threatening outsider.

Look at the following pictures and captions which both appeared in the press after Hurricane Katrina.

How does this represent implicit bias from the editor?

How does this promote implicit bias in society?


Police Surveillance and Implicit Bias from the Sociologist Toolbox
Here are a number of other examples (A NY Police Lt., Harvard U. President, State Senator Obama)


A Girl Like Me

Watch the following video and explain what evidence it provides that explicit bias exists and promotes racism and implicit bias exists and promotes racism.



What evidence does the video provide that explicit bias exists and promotes racism?

What evidence does the video provide that implicit bias exists and promotes racism?

The Police Officer's Dilemma from University of Colorado at Boulder

And another example of implicit bias is from the University of Chicago's Joshua Corell who showed how people react in a split second when they confront someone with a weapon. Soc Images explains it here.  See here for a link to the game and conclusions.

The Kirwan Institute from The Ohio State University

The Ohio State University does extensive research on implicit bias through their Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.

The institute publishes a yearly review of the state of implicit bias research.  You can find that here.

Kirwan Institute and Medicine

Kirwan's 2017 research shows that even doctors and patient health are affected by implicit bias.  The research is supported by the American Association of Medical Colleges.  You can download it here.










University of Chicago School of Economics and Labor Market

Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan published a study of implicit bias and the labor market in The American Economic Review called Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination?

Labor Market and Felonies
From the NY Times, When a Dissertation Makes a Difference shows not only how unconscious bias can play a role in hiring in a most inequitable way, but also how sociology can make a difference that influences policy.

As a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Devah Pager studied the difficulties of former prisoners trying to find work and, in the process, came up with a disturbing finding: it is easier for a white person with a felony conviction to get a job than for a black person whose record is clean.

Sociology of Education and School Discipline

Edward Morris and Brea Perry's research found that discipline in school for subjective offenses might be shaped by implicit bias.  See their research published in the ASA's journal here or here.


What Would You Do? 
And this video showing how people are more quick to be suspicious and to call the police if they see a black man committing the same crime as a white man.

Explicit Bias

As you enter, please read this:

Over the last few years, the  United States has elected its first black/ mixed-race President, there are more black actors and actresses on network television, and the cultural norm is that it’s wrong to be racist, so,

 Is racism still relevant? Should we still be concerned about racism or have we moved past racism? 

(Please jot down a response to this)

Even though race does not exist biologically, it does exist as a social construction. This means that people believe in it and act on it even though it is not real (Thomas Theorem).  One of the ways the social construction of race affects people is by creating and ideology that a dominant group is superior than other groups without power, or minority groups.  This is called racism.  Racism is often used to justify unequal social arrangements between those in power and minorities.

One type of racism is explicit racism - directly and consciously believing that one's own "racial" group is superior to others. Another way that Americans have been shaped by "race" is prejudice and discrimination.  Prejudice is having a predetermined attitude about a group of people usually based on a stereotype.  Discrimination is an action or behavior that results in unequal treatment of individuals because of his or her perceived "race."


Checkout these recent events in our country:

Miss America 2013, Nina Davluri came to SHS. But when she won the pageant, there was a flurry of tweets about her race.

Here is a post about tweets from the 2013 Miss America pageant.
Is this racism?
Is this prejudice?
Is this discrimination?


Here is a post  about a 2013 racist incident in an unlikely place.


Racism in College

Fraternities and sororities hold racial-themed parties that display very directly the racialized stereotypes that persist in the United States. Does this surprise you?  How would you feel/react to a party like this when you go to college?
Here is a post about why dressing up in this way is not okay.

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education has an ongoing list of racist incidents.


Racism in Sports





In 2018, Racism at Wrigley in the bleachers.

The stakes of the moment are made clear by a Latino female fan who security rescues from physical and verbal harm. She stands on the bleachers and points at each member of the white security team.
“You and you and you will never know what it’s like,” she says.
A few seconds later, a Latino fan involved in the altercation accuses security of “taking the white people’s side.” The fight appears to be ending when the non-Latino fan bellows the same slurs, putting his hands on either side of his mouth to amplify his voice and ensure he’s heard. It’s only then that he realizes he’s being recorded. (If you feel the need to fully absorb these words, you can watch the videos here.)
It’s a telling moment. He feels safe enough to shout those words next to security personnel. But when he realizes his actions might be seen outside of the stadium, he accosts the person recording the fight. Security also instructs this person to “put your phone away” and says “you’re on private property, you don’t have permission to videotape anyone.”

In 2017, Fans at Fenway made news numerous times over there racist taunts of opposing teams'  players.

In 2017, Yu Darvish was taunted and mocked for looking Asian.

In 2012, Joel Ward, a black NHL player scored the winning goal in the NHL playoffs and he became the target of racial slurs.


Racism in the Marketplace
A college student from Queens got more than he bargained for when he splurged on a $350 designer belt at Barneys — when a clerk had him cuffed apparently thinking the black teen couldn’t afford the pricey purchase, even though he had paid for it, a new lawsuit alleges.
“His only crime was being a young black man,” his attorney, Michael Palillo, told The Post.


Racism in Politics


During the Healthcare debate in 2009, Representative David Scott of Georgia had a 4foot swastika painted over his office sign.


The Southern Poverty Law Center identifies hate groups in America. This link will show you a map of all the hate groups in the United States.   Is this surprising?  Is this concerning?


This article from the Mail Online, A British online newspaper:

And with Mr Obama reportedly receiving more death threats than any other American president - 400 per cent more than those against his predecessor George Bush, according to a new book...A black U.S. Congressman had a swastika painted over his office sign after he yelled at allegedly racist protesters at a Southern town hall meeting, it emerged today.

Racism in the Media

Jeremy Lin is an example of the racial stereotypes in sports and how stereotypes can be more or less permissible for different groups within a society. Here is a post explaining that dynamic from the society pages.  Here is a clip of the skit from the daily beast.  Have you seen or heard any explicit racism in your own life?

Explicit Racism Backstage

Sociologists Leslie Picca and Joe Feagin explain in their book Two-faced Racism that racism can be explicit even if it is not always shared publicly.  Read an excerpt here.  Watch a video of Leslie Picca here:



SOCHE Talks: Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage from SOCHE on Vimeo.


Takeaway (for more info see Ferris and Stein pages 219 - 222)

What is the difference between racism, prejudice and discrimination?

What is explicit racism? 

What evidence is there that the U.S. is not post-racial and explicit racism exists?

Racial Construction and Racism in US history

Click here to do an activity from PBS's Race Power of an Illusion where you have to categorize people like a census taker would have.  (Use Safari or a browser that enables Flash)

After you do the sorting people activity above, click here to learn about traits.

This subjective, visual categorization of people is how the US Census operated until 1970.

Not only was racial classification based on this subjective, visual categorization of people, but also the categories have changed over time.

This is just one way that institutional policies constructed race differently throughout US history.


Read one of these posts to examine how a group changed over time:

How Jews became white.

How Asians became "model minorities."

How whites learn to not think about race. (Bonilla-Silva)