Yes, Jeff Wall, Systemic Racism Exists in America — Part II: Implicit Bias & Disparate Impact

Part I here.

Let’s move on from definitions to a more in-depth discussion of what “systematic racism” actually means.

Systemic — “relating to a system, especially as opposed to a particular part.”

Racism — “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.”

As I noted in Part I, a lot of people struggle with the concept of “systemic racism” because they (incorrectly) believe that racism requires an overt, conscious, act. The first problem is people can and do have unconscious biases, implicit biases, that influence their behavior without them realizing it. The second problem is the issue of disparate impact, which can be defined as “policies, practices, rules, or other systems that appear to be neutral in the result but actually result in a disproportionate impact on a protected group.”

IMPLICIT BIAS

But the pernicious thing about racial attitudes is they don’t have to be “conscious” to influence your perceptions and actions. This is called implicit bias: “We have a bias when, rather than being neutral, we have a preference for (or aversion to) a person or group of people. Thus, we use the term “implicit bias” to describe when we have attitudes towards people or associate…