Managing Our Own Implicit Bias

Memes matter. They matter especially now, when they often substitute for thinking.

There are bad memes and good memes. Prime examples involved President Barack Obama.

The worst and most recent showed Obama and his wife Michelle, depicted with the bodies of monkeys or apes, bowing down (along with other Democrats) to a lion with the face of Donald Trump, as if in a clip from the Disney cartoon “The Lion King.”

One of the best, in my view, also involved Obama, but as President. It was a real photo, showing him bowing low to the Emperor of Japan in a formal greeting.

That’s normal and expected in Japanese society, especially in a diplomatic visit. But Obama was much taller than the Emperor, so he bowed especially low, as protocol required. The result was oddly humorous, as reflected in the strange smile on Emperor Akihito’s face.

The American right—especially the racists among us—made a big deal of it. They ridiculed Obama for allegedly debasing himself before a nation we had beaten in war, most of a century before, at great cost.

But I saw it differently. I’ve visited Japan several times, and not just as a tourist. I admire its culture. I’ve observed not just the formal politesse, which we “practical” Americans rarely show. I also saw, on numerous occasions, how ordinary Japanese people seem to look out for everyone else, even complete strangers and foreigners like me.

So when I saw that photo of Obama bowing, it moved me deeply. I saw an American president showing proper respect for a nation we had beaten in our most horrible war but that is now our most important ally. Today’s Japan has a lot to teach us, especially about Asia, where our whole species’ most important epoch is just beginning.

A devout believer in science, I also saw something in that bowing photo even more profound. I saw a son of Africa, where science says our species evolved, politely greeting the (nominal) ruler of Japan, from which the distant ancestors of our Native Americans may have come across the “land bridge” to populate America toward the end of the last Ice Age. So that bowing meme not only made me glad; it brought a deep feeling of species-wide “rightness” and closure.

The contrast between those two memes reflects our greatest challenge as a species. We evolved from apes on the African savanna, where an alpha male ruled every clan of thirty or so members ruled absolutely. Now that we live in nations of over a billion people (India and China), the alpha-male-ruler model is wearing thin. Even Xi Jinping, undoubtedly the most intelligent authoritarian leader today, is not up to the task, which no one person can possibly perform. Far too much knowledge of ourselves, our physiology and psychology, our diseases, our sciences, our appliances and our weapons lies trapped in the brains of specialists.

On the African savanna, it was no big deal for an angry and incompetent alpha male to rule a thirty-member clan absolutely. The worst that could happen was that the clan got defeated and banished, died out, or got absorbed by another clan. Our evolving species survived.

Today is different. A clash between great nations could cause the self-extinction of our species, whether by nuclear war, runaway global warming, or failure to stem a global pandemic while fighting a war. (Imagine a disease as deadly as ebola, but airborne, spread around the globe in days by airplanes.)

So, in my view, Job One for our species is expunging our innate clannishness, which today appears most powerfully and persistently in the form of racism.

How do we do that?

How can we all make progress together when vast regions of the globe fear, distrust or despise each other for little more than hereditary clannishness? How can we Americans make progress when our society—once driven by a fierce belief in equality—sets race against race, religion against religion, and those whose ancestors came here earlier against those who’ve come recently?

A lot of the problem boils down to what scientists call “implicit” bias. That’s a subconscious tendency to “demote” other groups in our estimation, without recognizing that we’re doing so and consequently never admitting it, even to ourselves.

We all have unconscious bias, whether we admit it or not. Even I do, although I was brought up by parents and in a culture that taught and celebrated the core teaching of our Declaration of Independence, that “all . . . are created equal[.]”

As scientific studies have shown, implicit and unconscious bias is nearly universal. Once trained as a scientist myself (later as a lawyer), I discovered a simple test for implicit bias that anyone can try.

It’s an easy thought experiment. I call it “painting ‘em white.” Not literally, of course. But in my mind.

I imagine that the object of possible unconscious racism, often a Black person, is instead a white person, with white skin, “white” speech, “white” clothes, and a name like John or Mary Smith. Then I consider how I would react if that hypothetical white person spoke (except for accent) and acted exactly like the Black person whose conduct or behavior is in question.

At first, I thought there was no need for such a test in my case because I had no implicit bias. But then I thought hard about the Reverend Al Sharpton.

I first applied this test years ago, when Sharpton was in his sociopolitical prime. He seemed to appear at every news conference of a Black victim of racial injustice. He was articulate, if not eloquent. He was generally unsparing in his criticism of the police, local and national leaders, the “system” and anyone else he viewed as responsible for injustice.

But he also seemed to have little or no sense of humor, or of the absurd. From a distance, he seemed a perpetually disgruntled and often angry man, albeit with good reason.

Then there was the case of Tawana Brawley. This young Black woman claimed she had been attacked and raped by white boys over several days. But the “rape kit” turned out negative, and there was evidence that she had staged the incident to avoid a beating by her father. After hearing all the evidence, the grand jury refused to indict any of the accused perpetrators. Sharpton, who had represented Brawley vigorously, to my knowledge never apologized for adamantly supporting her, although the whole incident had enormously complicated the relationship between the Black community and the police and administration of New York City. This incident increased my skepticism of Sharpton.

But when I applied my “paint em’ white” test, my attitude began to change. I considered the point of view of the many victims of racial injustice whom Sharpton had comforted and helped. Often their angst involved real police violence (including real injury and death) against them, a spouse, a child or another close relative.

I imagined how alone those victims might have felt: ordinary people trying to squeeze justice out of a complex, impersonal, unresponsive, unrepentant and sometimes hostile legal and governmental system. I thought how grateful they must have been for the help of someone with courage, experience, and education to stand by their side.

By putting myself in the place of the victim and/or the victim’s survivors, I could see how comforting and valuable Sharpton might be. I had honestly to conclude that, were I in that position, Sharpton, with his knowledge of the law, know-how drawn from hard experience, and ability to comfort with his religious faith, would appear as both an avenging angel and a comforting soul.

So my “paint ‘em white” test changed my view of the Reverend Al Shapton from grudging acceptance to general admiration, which I still hold, despite his awkward handling of the Brawley fiasco.

That respect only increased in the last year or so, as Sharpton’s personal profile changed from a gigantic beach ball with arms and legs to a skinny old man much like me. Apparently he’s trying to beat the ravages of age just as science urges, with diet and exercise.

Can a Man of the Cloth who’s always been there to protect and comfort people deeply and unjustly aggrieved—and, at the same time, self-evidently applies the hard secrets of medical science in his own life—be all bad? Could he be both an exemplar of support for aggrieved neighbors and the rare “pol” who applies the teachings of science in his own life? (Eat your heart out, RFK, Jr.!)

Science also teaches us a lot indirectly about racism, if we would only we would learn. It tells us that our DNA, in every one of us, is 99.9% identical.

Our “races” are not separate sub-subspecies, let alone separate subspecies or species. They are mostly careless social constructs based on minor, local genetic adaptations, such as dark skin and brown eyes near the Equator, where the Sun shines hot, and light skin and blue eyes up in places like Norway and Sweden where it’s colder and darker.

What matters far more is our culture, education and upbringing, which any sentient, wise person, child or adult, can learn to assess and change. What matters is what we are taught and what we can learn to be.

We all need to learn to change and adapt together, and fast. Nuclear war, planetary heating, the melting of the polar ice caps, or the advent of an airborne pathogen far more contagious and deadly than Covid-19 won’t respect any “barriers” of “race,” religion, clan or place. And their risk is increasing daily.

In our still-new twenty-first century, Rodney King’s plaintive query assumes existential importance: “Why can’t we all just get along?” If we don’t, the danger of species self-extinction or just plain extinction will rise, perhaps decisively. Something like racism could help explain the Fermi Paradox, at least for species of intelligent individuals.