Op-Ed: Implicit Bias Isn’t Just a Theory—I’ve seen it at work.
Most of us believe that we are even-handed in the way we judge other people. Even when we are familiar with the concept of implicit bias (that we all have attitudes to people and issues that are driven by forces that we are not aware of), we tend to think it doesn’t really apply to us. In today’s anti-woke political environment, much of the education offered by institutions to reduce implicit bias has been ridiculed, and some of it has been eliminated altogether.
I am a mixed-race physician working in the Boston area, and I have had personal experience seeing implicit bias at work. Consider two recent events: the murder of George Floyd and the Karen Read trial. In my role as a clinician, I had the opportunity to hear the opinions of many of my colleagues on both cases.
We all remember the George Floyd case. Mr. Floyd was apprehended by police and, after being handcuffed behind his back, one of the officers chose to kneel on his neck for nine minutes, resulting in his death by asphyxiation. While cameras rolled, bystanders begged the officer to take the pressure off his neck, to no avail. My coworkers’ reactions to George Floyd’s death were mixed, but a significant number of them were unsympathetic. Much of the discussion focused on ways in which he was “probably not a very good guy” and may have been involved in criminal activity. I often heard comments suggesting that we need to remember how difficult policing is in inner-city environments and that officers are generally doing the best they can. We have all seen this sentiment reflected in the shift from the slogan “Black Lives Matter” to “Blue Lives Matter.”
A couple of years later, the Karen Read case emerged. For those unfamiliar with it, the case involved a white, middle-aged woman accused of murdering her boyfriend. Her trial was televised daily for weeks. The general consensus among my coworkers—especially among the middle-aged white women like Karen Read—was that she was innocent. Believing in her innocence required believing that the police had killed her boyfriend and then framed her by planting evidence. No one seemed to have any difficulty believing that such a conspiracy could have occurred. Ultimately, Karen Read was found not guilty of murder, and my colleagues may have been correct in their assessment of police involvement.
Still, I find it troubling how differently these two cases were perceived. In the first, my coworkers felt no personal connection to George Floyd and readily sided with the police—even after watching him die in broad daylight on television. In the second, Karen Read was someone they could easily identify with: a middle-aged white woman. In that context, believing that the police could be corrupt came effortlessly.
To me, this contrast illustrates the power of implicit bias in shaping our perceptions—and that none of us is immune to it. It has nothing to do with whether we are good people or not. My coworkers are good people. But it is only natural that when we feel connected to someone, we are more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt. This reinforces the idea that we can all benefit from being more aware of the role implicit bias plays in our lives and in how we perceive the people around us.
Abe Shurland
Reading, MA