National and global
attention has shown a spotlight on the brutal killing of George Floyd – an
unarmed black man who died when Officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against
Floyd’s neck for an estimated eight minutes and 45 seconds while other officers looked on without
intervening. Although Officer Chauvin
has been charged with second degree murder, protests continue to advocate for
police reforms to stop these needless killings.
Indeed, the historical record reveals that law enforcement throughout
the U.S. has all but declared open season on Black males. For example, a Tulsa
Police Department Division Commander, Major Travis Yates, recently explained
that African Americans probably ought to be shot more often based on the amount
of contact that they have with the police.[i]
In the ensuing debates
about police reforms, unconscious bias training has emerged as one potential
strategy. But what is “unconscious bias”?
Following is one simple definition:
“Unconscious biases, also known as implicit biases, are the underlying attitudes and stereotypes that people unconsciously attribute to another person or group of people that affect how they understand and engage with a person or group.” [ii]
The key term here is “underlying” which suggests
that the individual may not be aware of these attitudes and stereotypes. For example, gender bias is the tendency to
prefer one gender over another gender.
Confirmation bias is the inclination to draw conclusions about a
situation or person based on your personal desires, beliefs and prejudices
rather than on unbiased merit. Although
there are different types of unconscious bias, they share one thing in
common: a lack of awareness or
consciousness by the individual who may later choose to act on these beliefs.
Regardless of the type of unconscious bias under
consideration, I do not buy the argument that people are not conscious of their
“underlying” attitudes and stereotypes – as if their behavior deserves to be
forgiven or not disciplined due to an alleged lapse in memory or consciousness. The following three examples will hopefully
make my point.
Training Police on Using Pepper Spray
A news article in The
Dallas Morning News described an unusual training program at the Cambridge
police academy on the appropriate use of pepper spray when apprehending Mexican
American suspects. [iii] Police academy trainers were instructing new
cadets to use stronger doses of pepper spray on Mexican American suspects.
Officer Gutoski, the department training officer, explained their rationale in
rather un-scientific terms: “Mexicans grow up eating too much spicy food, and
because they spend so much time picking hot peppers in the fields….so with
Cajuns, Mexican-Americans, Pakistani, Indian…what happens is that pepper spray
is effective for a much shorter time.”
Even more unnerving is the explanation by departmental spokesman, Frank
Pasquarello, that “Officer Gutoski was repeating information that’s shared all
the time among officers in informal training sessions on the use of pepper
spray.” The
training program might have been considered an act of “unconscious bias” if not
for the fact that it was part of the approved training program.
Is Racial
Profiling on the Decline?
A
recent analysis of traffic stops made by the Texas Highway Patrol revealed that
racial profiling of Hispanics was on the decline, although critics suspected
that the Department of Public Safety was deliberately misclassifying Texas
drivers that they stopped in order to lower the state’s racial profiling
statistics. [iv] Further analysis,
however, revealed that the DPS troopers were assigning the race category based
on the physical characteristics of the drivers, rather than simply asking each
driver to identify themselves by race or ethnicity. To achieve the lower racial
profiling statistics, troopers apparently found it convenient to classify
Hispanic drivers as white. Was this unconscious bias? Perhaps not since the misclassifications by
race-ethnicity were not random and designed to achieve one objective: to lower the racial profiling statistics in
Texas.
Just a Cup of Coffee
A Starbucks shop in
Pennsylvania received national attention regarding the mistreatment of two
Black men who were asked to leave the premises even though they were just
waiting for a meeting to take place. The
Starbucks manger called police to remove the two men from the premises. The
CEO of Starbucks wasted little time in personally apologizing to the two black
men for their discriminatory treatment and announced that all Starbucks
employees would be required to attend a workshop to identify and remediate
unconscious bias.
In my view, the
Starbucks manager in Philadelphia that requested police action to remove the
two black customers was not motivated by “unconscious bias,” but rather
by conscious beliefs and prejudices against blacks that were not detected in
the screening process by Starbucks staff.
While it is common practice for organizations to screen applicants for
job skills, personality, career and criminal background, it seems that
screening for beliefs and attitudes about blacks and Latinos should also be
part of the hiring process.
Does
cultural knowledge or awareness influence medical treatment?
One recent study explored the trend in pain
management wherein whites were more likely than Blacks to be prescribed strong
pain medications for equivalent treatments.[v] Researchers at the University of Virginia
quizzed white medical students and residents to learn how many believed
inaccurate statements about biological differences between the two races – such
as “black people’s blood coagulates more quickly,” “Blacks’ skin is thicker
than whites’,” and “Blacks’ nerve endings are less sensitive than whites.’ ” Although
they expected some endorsement of these statements, the investigators were
surprised that so many in the group with medical training endorsed such
beliefs. It was discovered that those who held false beliefs often rated Black
patients’ pain lower than that of white patients and made less appropriate
recommendations for the treatment of their pain.
Does
Unconscious Bias Help Us Understand Police Brutality?
It is not
likely that Officer Chauvin experienced unconscious bias while he forced his
knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 45 seconds.
It is more likely, based on his past behavior, that he intentionally and
consciously killed Floyd. Officer
Chauvin should have been removed from policing a long time ago, and it is not
likely that any amount of unconscious bias
training could have changed his animosity towards blacks. Such individuals pose
a danger to the safety of all residents, especially people of color.
Beliefs, prejudices
or stereotypes about people of color are a consequence of many factors – family
values, a past negative experience, media stereotypes, and growing racial
segregation in residences, churches, schools, and social networks – factors
that are very resistant to change. In addition, the current political climate
in the U.S. has “normalized” racist commentary and behaviors towards blacks and
Latinos, making it much easier to mistreat these groups. In 2018, there
were 7,120 hate crime incidents in the U.S. with a majority of the reported
hate crimes motivated by race, ethnicity or ancestry bias (59.6 percent). [vi] (See Figure 1 below)
Figure 1
Source:
Conclusion
The prevalence of
hate crimes based on race, ethnicity or ancestry should serve as a loud warning
bell to employers that current employees and new hires, especially armed police
officers, should be vigorously investigated for past experiences and current
attitudes related to people of color. Once the presence of these negative
attitudes or stereotypes is confirmed, these individuals should not be hired. Current
employees should be removed from the organization or re-assigned to a position
that does not require interaction with the public. Indeed, it is insufficient
to simply conclude that a person shows evidence of unconscious bias that is
potentially harmful and expect that a workshop will magically remediate their
hostility towards Blacks, Latinos or Asians.
[i] Li, D.K.
(2020, June 11). African
Americans ‘probably ought to be’ shot more by police, a top Tulsa officer said.
NBC News. Accessed at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/african-americans-probably-ought-be-shot-more-police-top-tulsa-n1229981
[iii] Dallas Morning News (1999, August
14). Pepper spray remarks backfire on
department. Cited from Los Angeles
Times.
[iv] Rincón, E. T.
(2016). How DPS can improve its system of recording race/ethnicity during
traffic stops. Dallas News, Jan. 2016. Available at https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2016/01/27/edward-t.-rincon-how-dps-can-improve-its-system-of-recording-raceethnicity-during-traffic-stops
[v] Hoffman, K.M.,
Trawalter, S., Axt, J.R., and Oliver, M.N.(2016, April 19). Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment
recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks
and whites. PNAS Vol. 113 No. 16.
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