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Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions

nytimes.com

21–30 of 56 posts

Re: Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions

#21

Articles like this always leave out Asians because it does not fit the narrative and forces you to think about culture as a main factor.

The narrative is "People are still judged based on their race/ethnicity". If Asians are hired more, then that's further evidence.

And "culture" is one component of ethnicity.

Re: Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions

#22
post #2

Interesting article. For the "black names" thing, though, I would be curious to know if there were any studies also comparing "stereotypical white-but-not-anglophone" names, for example Greek, East-European, or South-European names. And also, for example, non-traditional names that have no racial implications, like "Rainbow" or similar.

"non-traditional names that have no racial implications, like "Rainbow" or similar"

Aren't the races behind these names usually clear? In Africa such names are along the lines of Pretty, or Precious, and in the west they're Apple, or Peaches.

Re: Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there's the belief that the human species has races unlike cats, dogs, etc. Just because the word is shared with the scientific concept doesn't mean it's believed to be the same thing. It's simply a remnant of the times when that was the general belief.

"There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past." - American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 1996 - http://www.virginia.edu/woodson/courses/aas102%20%28spring%2...

You missed my point. No, the human species doesn't have races in the scientific sense. What you shouldn't assume is that all mentions of the word "race" are referring to the scientific concept. Quoting census.gov:

The racial categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically.

Re: Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions

#24
If you want to test your own _implicit_ biases (sexism, agism, homophobia, racism), there is a nice battery of tests https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/, which base on reaction times.

There are two interesting things about it:

- even if you are liberal, implicit biases may persist (because of various biological and cultural factors),

- its about you (its easy to excuse oneself that implicit x-isms are only about others, less rational or something).

Re: Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions

#25
post #10

I read about a study once where college students in the US were asked to provide their ethnicity on the front of their test papers. This had a notable negative effect on the scores of African-Americans due to unconscious bias, I believe it was presented as an example of priming

Yes, the effect is called "stereotype threat"[1] in the psychology literature. A professor of psychology who participates in the journal club I participate in is deeply skeptical of how large the effect size of stereotype threat is in the real world. On my part, I like the interventions that have been suggested by the main stereotype threat researchers, to prime students with self-expressed affirmations of their core values to help them boost their own performance.

[1] http://mrnas.pbworks.com/f/claude%20steele%20stereotype%20th...

https://teachersh.scis-his.net/tmrak/wp-content/uploads/site...

Re: Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions

#26

Articles like this always leave out Asians because it does not fit the narrative and forces you to think about culture as a main factor.

Bias goes both ways and biases effecting social status for Asians are typically positive. For example, if hiring for a Mathematician from three resumes, 1 White, 1 Black, and 1 Asian and being unaware of actual skill, the Asian would likely be considered first. In this case bias helped the Asian get a job that will raise their social status. There are negative biases towards Asians as well, but they don't have much e…

I'm not sure that "positive" is the right word here. Biases seem to be frequently double-edged at a minimum.

The negative consequence is more obvious in your basketball example. Picking blacks for a basketball team simply because they are black is not positive. It is part of a system of thinking, which says that "blacks are good at these things". The corollary is that "blacks are not good at these other things". So, even what you might consider a "positive" bias has a reinforcing effect on the way we classify people and form other biases that are objectively and obviously negative in socially significant ways.

Likewise, classifying Asians as good mathemeticians is part of a system of thinking that says they are less good at other things. All of these preconceived notions have some value attached to them which, collectively, have a direct bearing on social status.

In short, biases tend to have a profound negative side even, or especially, when we are unaware of as much and/or believe they are OK.

Re: Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past." - American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 1996 - http://www.virginia.edu/woodson/courses/aas102%20%28spring%2...

You missed my point. No, the human species doesn't have races in the scientific sense. What you shouldn't assume is that all mentions of the word "race" are referring to the scientific concept. Quoting census.gov: The racial categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or gene…

If this "social definition" of race is accepted and somehow washed of its original meaning, why keep on using "racism" with the obviously disconnected meaning? How is racism defined in this brave new world of semantic chameleonism? As a synonym for xenophobia?

Re: Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions

#28
It's not just race. Ugly people are incredibly discriminated against. Attractive politicians receive two and a half times as many votes as unattractive ones. Attractive people are far more likely to get hired and get paid 14% more. Unattractive people are twice as likely to be convicted for the same crimes in court, and have to pay damages twice as high on average.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/lj/the_halo_effect/

Re: Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there's the belief that the human species has races unlike cats, dogs, etc. Just because the word is shared with the scientific concept doesn't mean it's believed to be the same thing. It's simply a remnant of the times when that was the general belief.

"There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past." - American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 1996 - http://www.virginia.edu/woodson/courses/aas102%20%28spring%2...

This is far from universally agreed on.

>when examining the frequency of different alleles (variants of a particular gene) at an individual locus (the location of a particular gene) between individuals, it is nonetheless possible to classify individuals into different racial groups with an accuracy that approaches 100 percent when one takes into account the frequency of the alleles at several loci at the same time. This happens because differences in the frequency of alleles at different loci are correlated across populations — the alleles that are more frequent in a population at two or more loci are correlated when we consider the two populations simultaneously. Or in other words, the frequency of the alleles tends to cluster differently for different populations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genetic_Diversity:_Lewon...

In other words people's genetics do naturally cluster into different groups.

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