Everyday Bias. Howard J. Ross
and gave helpful feedback; and Jake Ross, who contributed research support. Also thanks to Jon Sisk and the rest of the folks at Rowman & Littlefield who are a pleasure to work with.
I am very grateful to the people of Cook Ross Inc., the company I cofounded in 1989 and sold in the summer of 2018, who are deeply committed to transforming the world one organization at a time, especially my business partner and now successor as CEO, Michael Leslie Amilcar.
Anther special acknowledgment to my dear friend and brother James Robby Gregg, Jr. who left this mortal plane in December 2018. Robby was one of the greatest allies I ever had in terms of getting my work out into the world. There is no doubt in my mind that my career would have been much smaller and much more limited without his constant support, friendship, and dedication. Robby, you believed in me before it all happened. There will never be another like you. I love you more.
My deepest gratitude goes to my family. My parents, Jack and Irene Ross, raised all of us to be thinkers and learners and to make a contribution to the world around us. I miss them. My stepfather, Bob Rosen, who loved me for more than twenty years. I am deeply grateful that he came into our lives. My sisters, Sharryn and Robbie, have always inspired my passion for social justice through their own good works. And special thanks to my sons, Matt, Jason, Gabe, and Jake, who are smart, loving and, simply, awesome, and to their wives, Monita, Kate, and Shauna, who contribute to my life in so many ways.
To my grandchildren, Hannah, Mayah, Sloane, Penelope, Davis, and Audrey, thank you for showering your Aaja with love.
And to my wife, business and life partner Leslie Traub. No words can possibly express how much my life has expanded because you are in it. You are at the core of everything. I love you.
Finally, to the Great Beloved, in all of the names. Thank you for my life and the chance to share it in a meaningful way.
Introduction
Blinded by the Light of Our Bias
We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders. ―Maya Angelou
Ninety-nine percent of who you are is invisible and untouchable. —R. Buckminster Fuller
Did you know people in supermarkets buy more French wine when French music is playing in the background, and more German wine when the music is German? That white National Basketball Association (NBA) referees have been found to call more fouls on black players, and black referees call more fouls on white players? Or, that scientists have been found to rate potential lab technicians lower, and plan to pay them less, if the potential technicians are women? And that doctors treat patients differently when the patients are overweight, and that patients treat doctors differently when the doctors are overweight?
Most importantly, did you know that all of these behaviors, and many more, happen without people realizing they are happening, and that these behaviors are demonstrations of biases? Biases people don’t know they possess. Biases that occur without people knowing why they occur.
Over the past twenty years or so, psychologists, cognitive psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and social scientists have observed countless incidents and engaged in literally hundreds of tests that undeniably point to a human dynamic that ranges from the curious to the tragic.
Human beings are consistently, routinely, and profoundly biased.
We not only are profoundly biased but we also almost never know we are being biased. The fact that we don’t know it results in behaviors that not only include the ones described previously, but, as we’ll discuss later, have even contributed to the deaths of innocent people.
During the course of the past five decades, people throughout the world have taken up the mantle of human equality in ways that have no historical precedent. In the United States, we have seen the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and the expansion of acceptance of and equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people. The public discourse has changed so dramatically during these past fifty years that in a great many social and professional circles, it had seemed that it was completely unacceptable to voice openly bigoted statements. In South Africa, apartheid (the horrific system designed to subjugate black South Africans to permit the white minority to maintain power) has been gone for more than twenty years. In Europe, countries have moved toward elevating gender equity to formal public policy status. Many of the governments of these nations are studying the many facets of multiculturalism as waves of immigrants radically change the demographics of historically homogeneous countries.
We have established laws that limit people’s biased behavior and hold them accountable for discriminatory behavior. We have hired chief diversity officers who have instituted diversity and inclusion guidelines and training programs for millions of people in schools, major corporations, small businesses, governmental agencies, not-for-profit institutions and the military to teach us to be more “tolerant” of each other. We have established special holidays to recognize and honor the contributions made by previously unheralded individuals and movements. Large-scale summits and conferences meant to address equity issues take place around the world on an almost daily basis. We have written thousands of books (including mine), made numerous movies, developed social movements, organized protest marches, and produced countless Oprah shows, all in an attempt to try to understand the problem and then try to fix it. There is no question that, at least on a conscious level, the standard we set for our behavior has changed.
And yet, as we have seen in the last few years, these changes are quite fragile. In the last few years we have seen a rise again in the visibility of white supremacist movements, spurred on by a President who has referred to them as “very nice people.” We have heard that same president tell four women of color, all members of congress, to “go home to where they came from,” even as three of them were born in this country and the fourth a naturalized citizen. We have seen brown skinned immigrants attacked and their families separated as they wait in cages for their right to asylum.
Not all of these are examples of unconscious bias, but the fact that people support them, despite the fact that they see themselves and the country as fair and equitable, is an example of the way our minds can play tricks with us. There is good reason for moving towards more inclusive behavioral standards. More than ever, people realize that creating an inclusive, culturally competent society just makes good sense. Businesses recognize the impact of getting the best workers from an increasingly diverse workforce, creating the most engaged workplace environments which allow people to perform at the highest level while serving an increasingly diverse and global customer base. Health-care providers recognize that removing bias and understanding the cultural patterns of patients not only creates greater equity, but also creates greater patient health outcomes. Educational institutions know that a diverse student body creates a better scholastic experience for their learners and that the quality of teaching improves when teachers demonstrate more inclusivity and less bias.
And yet, despite all of these efforts and all of these good intentions, there are countless examples of how our biases still dominate our everyday thinking. How is it that with all of this effort, patterns of disparity continue in virtually every area of life? Medical and dental disparity gaps between whites and people of color in the United States, especially for African American, Latino, and Native American patients, have not changed significantly over the past five decades. Incarceration rates are still dramatically higher among African Americans than among the white population, and they are significantly higher in European countries among immigrant populations of color than among the native born. The salaries of women, compared to those for men in the same jobs, are changing in such a glacially slow fashion that at the current rate, we will not achieve gender equity in the salary sphere in North America and elsewhere in the world until we are well into the next century. Suicide rates for gay teenagers remain four times higher than those for heterosexual youth.
I could go on, because the data are overwhelming, but the question