October 15, 2025 • 22 mins
This is a rebroadcast of ep 168
In this episode of Libertarians Talk Psychology, Julie reviews a report on racial bias published by the Association for Psychological Science. We take a deep dive into what modern research says about racism, bias, and systemic disparities—and how these ideas are often misunderstood in public discussions.
Julie explains the difference between racism, which involves hostility or intent, and bias, which can occur without conscious awareness or malice. We explore implicit bias (unconscious) versus explicit bias (conscious), and how these affect perception, behavior, and policy.
The conversation also challenges the effectiveness of diversity training programs aimed at changing individual attitudes. Instead, the evidence shows that targeting institutional disparities produces better outcomes—aligning with the Libertarian perspective that systems, not thought policing, should be the focus of reform.
Join us as we blend psychological science, critical thinking, and Libertarian philosophy to better understand one of today’s most controversial and emotionally charged topics.
Follow Us:
YouTube
Twitter
Facebook
Bluesky
All audio & videos edited by: Jay Prescott Videography
In this episode of Libertarians Talk Psychology, Julie reviews a report on racial bias published by the Association for Psychological Science. We take a deep dive into what modern research says about racism, bias, and systemic disparities—and how these ideas are often misunderstood in public discussions.
Julie explains the difference between racism, which involves hostility or intent, and bias, which can occur without conscious awareness or malice. We explore implicit bias (unconscious) versus explicit bias (conscious), and how these affect perception, behavior, and policy.
The conversation also challenges the effectiveness of diversity training programs aimed at changing individual attitudes. Instead, the evidence shows that targeting institutional disparities produces better outcomes—aligning with the Libertarian perspective that systems, not thought policing, should be the focus of reform.
Join us as we blend psychological science, critical thinking, and Libertarian philosophy to better understand one of today’s most controversial and emotionally charged topics.
Follow Us:
YouTube
Bluesky
All audio & videos edited by: Jay Prescott Videography
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a rebroadcast of an earlier episode.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
For you.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to the podcast Coffee with Mike and Julie
Libertarians Talk Psychology. This is current commentary from an NBA
businessman and a PhD psychologist.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Look our Son told us he was a little concerned
about how much we talked about race, and so I
wanted to do a little bit of framing the issue
about race. So one thing that came up that I
was watching some YouTube videos. Watch two of them. One
(00:35):
is the blackest States, and Louisiana is the second blackest state.
Mississippi is the first blackest state as.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Far as percentage of black population.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, Louisiana is thirty three or thirty four percent. I
think Mississippi has like almost forty percent, thirty eight, thirty nine.
There's also a YouTube video on the most racist states.
Is not among those now, it was interesting how the
guy measured racism is the racist comments on Twitter and
(01:07):
where they come from, which I think is very interesting.
Probably nobody in Louisiana is on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Well, plus who says what comment is racistem what will
well well?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Which is a good segue into what I want to
talk about today. It's the Association for Psychological Science published
a Psychological Science in the Public Interest article review. It's
really not an article, it's really a kind of a
meta analysis of information. And this was May twenty twenty
two and the name is Implicit Bias Remedies Treating Discriminatory
(01:44):
Bias as a Public Health Problem, and the lead author
is Anthony Greenwall. Well, Anthony Greenwall and his colleagues have
developed over the last few decades the implicit association test, the.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
IA define implicit.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I'm going to okay, I told you to lay back.
I lay back until I get the yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
But if you're going to use language I don't understand,
I don't know what to.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Do, well you let me know you don't know what
I'm talking about. And so I am going to define it,
and we're going to go from definitions. Over the last
several decades, the definitions and the scientific understanding of racism
and discrimination and bias, implicit bias, explicit bias have been changing.
So these definitions include, according to Greenwall and his review,
(02:36):
implicit bias, unconscious bias, systematic racism, intentional discrimination, systematic bias,
and implicit races. So about starting in nineteen ninety five
the intentional discrimination research, the use of that term dropped
(02:58):
very very fast, and implicit bias became more popular. And
the reason for that is that you can ask people
about there. Okay, that this brings up the topic of
racism versus discrimination, which I want to really make a
big point on. Racism includes hostility. So the term racist
means you're hostile toward a minority group. But what became
(03:21):
clear in the research is that you could have bias
and not be hostile. So that distinction has become more
and more clear. And there's a reason that's become more
and more clear, as it turns out people who are
egalitarian have implicit bias. Forty percent of people who claim
to have no bias have biases that are unconscious. So
(03:42):
this then brings up the issue of implicit bias, which
is basically unconscious unconscious bias. We call it an implicit
bias and kind of conscious self reporting bias is called
explicit and those two correlate, but they're not matched. They
can be.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Different, and is implicit hostile.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
No, Okay, Now, this is what we're talking about today.
This is what they found out in you know, in
a decade and a half of research is implicit bias
is kind of like the fabric of society. It's something
that is unconscious. It's associations, knowledge, experiences that can't be
separated from a person. You can't really change them, and
(04:26):
you can't really take them away. But they don't have
to automatically mean discrimination against the minority groups either. This
is why this report is so important. There's several points
I want to make, and I may not make them
well today, but I want to lay them out for
us and our audience because it's important to have a
fabric of rationality about all of this. So the implicit
(04:50):
test is let me just read from this. In describing it,
Greenwald stopped using the words prejudice and racism to describe
implicit biases that were measured with the IAT, and the
reason for this change was that nothing about the IAT
procedure should prompt research subjects while their classification latencies were
(05:13):
being measured to bear in mind the animus, the hostility,
or the antithopy that is central ingredient in most definitions
of racism and prejudice. So the IAT the implicit bias
tests did not tap into hostility. It just tapped into
a difference. So I want to add to that one
other thing before we sort of talk about what the
(05:35):
findings mean is anyone can take this implicit test, and
I've taken it several times. Let me just say where
you can take it. Think it's implicit dot Harvard dot edu. Yeah,
you can take the IAT measure on any kind of
prejudice or discrimination at implicit dot Harvard dot edu slash implicit.
(05:58):
So I took it, and I was shocked. I thought
I was going to come out as racist. Not racist.
I'm not racist. I don't have any hostility that I
can identify against anybody. Well, that's not truly true. I
do hate bureaucrats.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
There are plenty of people you hate.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
That was really a lie. They're plenty of people I hate.
As a libertarian, I hate several people for their actions.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
You hate people whose hostility goes to the point of
taking from.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Other people, who are aggressive taking.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
There's hostility, and then there's hostility to the point of
taking from other people or denying other people their freedom.
That is the kind of hostility that you have that
we libertarians where we draw the line.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Well, it's true, and I do actually hate people who
have treated me like shit and have stumped on my rights.
There you go, do I do? And I don't care what.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I can't identify a single black person that has treated
me like shit or stomped on my rights. I can't.
It's mostly white guys and white women. And this was
my results on the implicit association test were very very
interesting to me because I thought I was going to
come out with the typical white bias. I came out
with a bias in favor of black people. Yeah, And
(07:21):
I thought, well, that's got to be wrong. I'll take
it again, and it came out the same way again.
And then I said later on, I said, well, let
me take it again. Maybe I'm fooling with my results
because I'm very knowledgeable, you know, I'm a sophisticated test taker.
I took it again. It came out even stronger. So
I thought, maybe that's because I was raised by black people.
(07:42):
And in the South, when children are raised by black people,
they love them. You know. I loved Missy Lee, I
loved Robert, I love Smoky Joe. These were caregivers to me.
And you know, I had that dream when I was
in a crisis years ago where the protector showed up.
Remember the Mister T character from TV. I had a
(08:04):
dream character, mister T who had braids in his hair,
you know, definitely black. His hair was braided and had
it beads in the braids, and he showed up as
a protector in my dream. Very strong positive feelings about him,
that dream character. So I thought, well, maybe so maybe
(08:24):
my upbringing in the South has caused me to have
affection for black people. But anyone can go take it.
I want to point out that this particular thing, the
implicit association tests, kind of blew the top off the
liberals feeling that if you were white and from the South,
(08:44):
you were racist, you had hostility toward blacks. Well it
turned out that whites from the North had hostility. Oh yeah,
you know, it turned out. I want to go over
that before we go on, because this was an interesting finding.
You know, all the holier than Thou people got their
come upance with that. But they found out they've tested
(09:08):
Greenwall and his crew tested one point five million people,
So bon.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Jam, that's a big sample.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Well, Harvard has lots of money, you know, and they
and the test is really especially.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Especially when it comes to some racial study.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. It's like, oh, man, a racial
study we're in, you know, and that I don't have
that study available today, but it found out that liberals,
if they have to save somebody, they'd rather save a
black person. Yeah, and then white people, if they have
to save somebody, they equally save the black person. The
(09:46):
liberals have a tendency, you know, a caregiving tendency for
the victim, and therefore they're actually they favored the victim
more than the white people. The white people aren't trying
to hurt black people, they just don't have the favoring.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Of course, according to that study.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, okay, so let me let me go over this
Greenwall analyzed data from more than one point five million
persons who had completed both the self report race attitude measure.
Now that's the explicit you know, are you racist kind
of questions and parallel implicit measures. That's the unconscious measure
(10:24):
in the Project Implicit website. So I mean people want
to go take it. They might be able to google
Project Implicit and go there. Forty percent of those persons
showed a combination of egalitarian attitude on the self report
and more than minor implicit racial preference for white on
(10:46):
the in Okay, so there was a disconnect between forty
percent had a I'm not prejudice. Of course, I'm using prejudice.
I don't discriminate. Let me just say it is discrimination
of the had an egalitarian conscious attitude and a discriminatory
(11:06):
unconscious attitude. And that's really really important, and that leads
into this. He's also found in this report sets that
changing that attitude, that unconscious attitude is almost impossible.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Okay, so this is all comparing. Is it okay for
me to speak now?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, okay, that's the introduction. That's a long introduction. But
this is a complex issue.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Well this is why.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
But it's a very important issue.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
It is complex. But this is a comparison between people
who recognize their racism or their prejudice and what they
unconsciously their unconscious bias. That's what this Yeah, that's what
you just described.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, forty percent, this is why I interpret this. Forty
percent think they're egalitarian and.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I don't know what he canes.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
That they have no discrimination attitude and let's say, do
not self report, they have no self report of any discrimination,
but they have unconscious discrimination. So that folds into I
mean to summarize. He's got several conclusions from that. But
(12:24):
one conclusion, just to jump to the chase here before
we run out of too much time, is that this
is very hard to change, and you really can't change
the individual. You can only change the system.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
There you go, Now we're talking.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, I knew you. Yeah, So I'm going to go
over the conclusions. So misunderstandings, so they summarize all the
research they have. There's several misunderstandings, but one misunderstanding is
that the implicit attitudes assess prejudice and racism. They don't.
(13:00):
They assess knowledge about groups. They call it associative knowledge
about groups, not hostility toward them. So that distinction is very,
very important. And I hope that when we're talking to
our audience, people know, I mean, you haven't taken the
implicit test, but you might want to. But I took it,
and I have proof that I'm not racist. I mean,
(13:23):
I don't feel explicitly racist, and I've checked my unconscious associations,
and I have warm feelings about black people. I don't know,
I don't have to take one on hispanic and I
have I might not have every group warm feelings about
every group. I'm not sure I do. I kind of
think I may have some concerns about maybe Middle East
(13:46):
people or something like that, but I have unconscious warm
feelings about black people. So if I say something that
points out a difference, that does not mean that I
have hostility. And that's an important distinction that we're losing.
You know that we're losing that. You can't have a difference.
You can't address a difference unless you're hostile. That's really
(14:10):
impossible and it's really not a good way of looking
at racial differences.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Okay, let me understand your statement. You're saying that it
can't be addressed unless it's conscious and hostile. Is that
what you're trying to say.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Well, no, that's not well, maybe let me just skip that.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Let me go back to your invitation for me to
take the test. I'd be glad to take the test.
I'm kind of curious how I might measure when it
comes to black God to take it when it comes
to black and white Asians, Middle East. You know, I'd
be curious. But the bottom line is it's to me,
it's irrelevant. What is relevant is that people have the
(14:50):
freedom to become the best that they can be and
not be hindered, you know, by some other group or
specifically the government, which is what it wants.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
You're focusing on the systemic discrimination, and that's what libertarians
focus on, and that's the right, that's what greenwal says.
That's where we should be. We should find the disparities,
we should nip them in the bud, in the system.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Okay, I applaud that.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, well I figured you would.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Then that's the libertarian and I want to comment that
you can have that, you can address that systemically, and
you can still have unconscious and conscious bias. Those things
can still exist.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Well, that's exactly right, but.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
The best you can do is to fix the system.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Well, you kind of come to it from an intuitive standpoint,
to the same conclusion that he proves from a scientific
stand right, So let me point out that, Okay, implicit
and explicit advices are positively correlated. But here's the two
bottom lines that reflect what you said. With only occasional exceptions,
(16:01):
experimental attempts to reduce long established biases have not found
that they are modifiable, durably modifiable. In other words, this
diversity training is a waste of time because you can
try to change the individual's unconscious bias, but it just
flips back. People have to be in psychotherapy forever or something.
(16:22):
It flips back. Another conclusion, scholarly reviews of the effectiveness
of group administered anti bias or diversity training methods have
not found convincing evidence for their mental or behavioral de
biasing effectiveness. It's a waste of time. It's a waste
of time to try to change people's unconscious And.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Of course I don't like that because that gets it
gets to in well, it gets into the way people think, Yeah,
you're getting into you're getting into mind control.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, that's a very good point.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Which is not where I think the systemic, the systemdemic
change is. Okay, that person has the right to pursue
their goals, and you know, we as a society shouldn't
stand in their way just because he's short, and I
don't like short people. I don't like short people. In fact,
(17:17):
he's not only short, he's ugly, and he's a woman.
He's declaring himself to be a woman even though he's
a man. I hate that guy, but I still don't
have the right to discriminating his way because he has
the right to perform his job and be paid and
recognized for his production.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
For doing the job, doing the job productively. Well, and
this is why this report is so pro libertarian, because
not only are we I had to say we're right,
Greenwall and his authors come to the conclusion that the
best way to deal with implicit bias with implicit bias.
(18:00):
The trouble is, I mean explicit and implicit is just fascinating.
You know, if you take the test, you'll see how
fascinating it is. Would they test how fast you answer
a question? That's your response rate? Is the independent measure?
I mean, how does that relate to anything? But I
mean it's just kind of like spooky stuff that psychologists do.
(18:23):
But the bottom line is that that basically unconscious associations
are not easily changed. And your point is well taken.
Should they be the target of governmental attempts to change
and do mind control?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
No, but they shouldn't and even if they did, they
would do more harm than do it from what I
can tell.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Well, you do get backlash, right, Yeah, that's probably part
of why they're they're finding that diversity training is you
get blowback and you get resistance, and you create problems.
I mean, there's the literature on this is piling up.
You can create problems that aren't there in the first
place by doing some of this stuff. But they agree
(19:10):
on three conclusions about implicit bias. Implicit bias is a
plausible cause for discriminatory behavior. So think about this test
fiftieth percent dile cutoff that psychologists use that discriminates you
know that we have in Louisiana and of course across
the states they use.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
That pertaining to PhD psychology PhD psychologists.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
It is now proven that it has an adverse impact
on blacks, and they're not doing anything about it. No,
I mean, that's got to be some kind of I mean,
it's so obvious what's wrong, and they're not changing it.
And these are the people that wave the flag for
egalitarian behavior.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
That is the epitome of this systemic problem.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
It is, it is the epitome of the systemic problem.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And look at in that particular case, your case from
Louisiana psychologists. The very group that it's supposed to understand
the science and understand what racism is and understand what
systemic racism is, that very group is resistant to fixing
the problem.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yeah, So where is that explicit or is that implicit?
I have to say that's implicit because it makes no sense.
And that's where you get unconscious things that make no sense,
makes no logical sense that they would dismiss us. We
kept beating on their heads all through last year, all
through twenty twenty two, and we just get ignored. We
(20:41):
just get ignored. Well, we'll see what happens with that,
because we're going to the daddy. We're going to daddy.
We're going to go to legislature next. Okay, So a
couple other points and then we'll wrap up. They conclude
that implicit bias is considerably more widespread than generally expected.
So these stereotypes you know, do exist, All of that
(21:01):
does exist. And then they conclude that implicit bias may
produce discriminatory behavior in persons who are unaware of being biased.
You know, they're looking at a lot of really important characteristics.
But they conclude that the way to the conclusions are
disparity finding efforts. So they conclude that libertarians are right
(21:27):
that the best we can do is disparity finding methods
have the advantage of being useful in remediation, not only
for implicit biases, but also for systemic biases. So racism
is different than discrimination. They're people that are hostile. But
you can't change those people easily, and you can't really,
(21:50):
we don't even know if you can change them easily,
but you can change systemic discrimination. And you can do
that if you look for the disparities and then you
begin to see how those pathways have happened, and you
undo those pathways, you.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Take incentives out of the system that caused the problem.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah. So I know that it was a complicated review,
and it's because it's a complicated subject. But it's a
very very important subject, and you know, I kind of
introduced that to us and our audience because we need
to have it introduced.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
This has been a rebroadcast of an earlier episode.
This is a rebroadcast of an earlier episode.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
For you.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to the podcast Coffee with Mike and Julie
Libertarians Talk Psychology. This is current commentary from an NBA
businessman and a PhD psychologist.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Look our Son told us he was a little concerned
about how much we talked about race, and so I
wanted to do a little bit of framing the issue
about race. So one thing that came up that I
was watching some YouTube videos. Watch two of them. One
(00:35):
is the blackest States, and Louisiana is the second blackest state.
Mississippi is the first blackest state as.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Far as percentage of black population.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, Louisiana is thirty three or thirty four percent. I
think Mississippi has like almost forty percent, thirty eight, thirty nine.
There's also a YouTube video on the most racist states.
Is not among those now, it was interesting how the
guy measured racism is the racist comments on Twitter and
(01:07):
where they come from, which I think is very interesting.
Probably nobody in Louisiana is on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Well, plus who says what comment is racistem what will
well well?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Which is a good segue into what I want to
talk about today. It's the Association for Psychological Science published
a Psychological Science in the Public Interest article review. It's
really not an article, it's really a kind of a
meta analysis of information. And this was May twenty twenty
two and the name is Implicit Bias Remedies Treating Discriminatory
(01:44):
Bias as a Public Health Problem, and the lead author
is Anthony Greenwall. Well, Anthony Greenwall and his colleagues have
developed over the last few decades the implicit association test, the.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
IA define implicit.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I'm going to okay, I told you to lay back.
I lay back until I get the yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
But if you're going to use language I don't understand,
I don't know what to.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Do, well you let me know you don't know what
I'm talking about. And so I am going to define it,
and we're going to go from definitions. Over the last
several decades, the definitions and the scientific understanding of racism
and discrimination and bias, implicit bias, explicit bias have been changing.
So these definitions include, according to Greenwall and his review,
(02:36):
implicit bias, unconscious bias, systematic racism, intentional discrimination, systematic bias,
and implicit races. So about starting in nineteen ninety five
the intentional discrimination research, the use of that term dropped
(02:58):
very very fast, and implicit bias became more popular. And
the reason for that is that you can ask people
about there. Okay, that this brings up the topic of
racism versus discrimination, which I want to really make a
big point on. Racism includes hostility. So the term racist
means you're hostile toward a minority group. But what became
(03:21):
clear in the research is that you could have bias
and not be hostile. So that distinction has become more
and more clear. And there's a reason that's become more
and more clear, as it turns out people who are
egalitarian have implicit bias. Forty percent of people who claim
to have no bias have biases that are unconscious. So
(03:42):
this then brings up the issue of implicit bias, which
is basically unconscious unconscious bias. We call it an implicit
bias and kind of conscious self reporting bias is called
explicit and those two correlate, but they're not matched. They
can be.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Different, and is implicit hostile.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
No, Okay, Now, this is what we're talking about today.
This is what they found out in you know, in
a decade and a half of research is implicit bias
is kind of like the fabric of society. It's something
that is unconscious. It's associations, knowledge, experiences that can't be
separated from a person. You can't really change them, and
(04:26):
you can't really take them away. But they don't have
to automatically mean discrimination against the minority groups either. This
is why this report is so important. There's several points
I want to make, and I may not make them
well today, but I want to lay them out for
us and our audience because it's important to have a
fabric of rationality about all of this. So the implicit
(04:50):
test is let me just read from this. In describing it,
Greenwald stopped using the words prejudice and racism to describe
implicit biases that were measured with the IAT, and the
reason for this change was that nothing about the IAT
procedure should prompt research subjects while their classification latencies were
(05:13):
being measured to bear in mind the animus, the hostility,
or the antithopy that is central ingredient in most definitions
of racism and prejudice. So the IAT the implicit bias
tests did not tap into hostility. It just tapped into
a difference. So I want to add to that one
other thing before we sort of talk about what the
(05:35):
findings mean is anyone can take this implicit test, and
I've taken it several times. Let me just say where
you can take it. Think it's implicit dot Harvard dot edu. Yeah,
you can take the IAT measure on any kind of
prejudice or discrimination at implicit dot Harvard dot edu slash implicit.
(05:58):
So I took it, and I was shocked. I thought
I was going to come out as racist. Not racist.
I'm not racist. I don't have any hostility that I
can identify against anybody. Well, that's not truly true. I
do hate bureaucrats.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
There are plenty of people you hate.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
That was really a lie. They're plenty of people I hate.
As a libertarian, I hate several people for their actions.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
You hate people whose hostility goes to the point of
taking from.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Other people, who are aggressive taking.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
There's hostility, and then there's hostility to the point of
taking from other people or denying other people their freedom.
That is the kind of hostility that you have that
we libertarians where we draw the line.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Well, it's true, and I do actually hate people who
have treated me like shit and have stumped on my rights.
There you go, do I do? And I don't care what.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I can't identify a single black person that has treated
me like shit or stomped on my rights. I can't.
It's mostly white guys and white women. And this was
my results on the implicit association test were very very
interesting to me because I thought I was going to
come out with the typical white bias. I came out
with a bias in favor of black people. Yeah, And
(07:21):
I thought, well, that's got to be wrong. I'll take
it again, and it came out the same way again.
And then I said later on, I said, well, let
me take it again. Maybe I'm fooling with my results
because I'm very knowledgeable, you know, I'm a sophisticated test taker.
I took it again. It came out even stronger. So
I thought, maybe that's because I was raised by black people.
(07:42):
And in the South, when children are raised by black people,
they love them. You know. I loved Missy Lee, I
loved Robert, I love Smoky Joe. These were caregivers to me.
And you know, I had that dream when I was
in a crisis years ago where the protector showed up.
Remember the Mister T character from TV. I had a
(08:04):
dream character, mister T who had braids in his hair,
you know, definitely black. His hair was braided and had
it beads in the braids, and he showed up as
a protector in my dream. Very strong positive feelings about him,
that dream character. So I thought, well, maybe so maybe
(08:24):
my upbringing in the South has caused me to have
affection for black people. But anyone can go take it.
I want to point out that this particular thing, the
implicit association tests, kind of blew the top off the
liberals feeling that if you were white and from the South,
(08:44):
you were racist, you had hostility toward blacks. Well it
turned out that whites from the North had hostility. Oh yeah,
you know, it turned out. I want to go over
that before we go on, because this was an interesting finding.
You know, all the holier than Thou people got their
come upance with that. But they found out they've tested
(09:08):
Greenwall and his crew tested one point five million people,
So bon.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Jam, that's a big sample.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Well, Harvard has lots of money, you know, and they
and the test is really especially.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Especially when it comes to some racial study.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. It's like, oh, man, a racial
study we're in, you know, and that I don't have
that study available today, but it found out that liberals,
if they have to save somebody, they'd rather save a
black person. Yeah, and then white people, if they have
to save somebody, they equally save the black person. The
(09:46):
liberals have a tendency, you know, a caregiving tendency for
the victim, and therefore they're actually they favored the victim
more than the white people. The white people aren't trying
to hurt black people, they just don't have the favoring.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Of course, according to that study.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, okay, so let me let me go over this
Greenwall analyzed data from more than one point five million
persons who had completed both the self report race attitude measure.
Now that's the explicit you know, are you racist kind
of questions and parallel implicit measures. That's the unconscious measure
(10:24):
in the Project Implicit website. So I mean people want
to go take it. They might be able to google
Project Implicit and go there. Forty percent of those persons
showed a combination of egalitarian attitude on the self report
and more than minor implicit racial preference for white on
(10:46):
the in Okay, so there was a disconnect between forty
percent had a I'm not prejudice. Of course, I'm using prejudice.
I don't discriminate. Let me just say it is discrimination
of the had an egalitarian conscious attitude and a discriminatory
(11:06):
unconscious attitude. And that's really really important, and that leads
into this. He's also found in this report sets that
changing that attitude, that unconscious attitude is almost impossible.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Okay, so this is all comparing. Is it okay for
me to speak now?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, okay, that's the introduction. That's a long introduction. But
this is a complex issue.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Well this is why.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
But it's a very important issue.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
It is complex. But this is a comparison between people
who recognize their racism or their prejudice and what they
unconsciously their unconscious bias. That's what this Yeah, that's what
you just described.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, forty percent, this is why I interpret this. Forty
percent think they're egalitarian and.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I don't know what he canes.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
That they have no discrimination attitude and let's say, do
not self report, they have no self report of any discrimination,
but they have unconscious discrimination. So that folds into I
mean to summarize. He's got several conclusions from that. But
(12:24):
one conclusion, just to jump to the chase here before
we run out of too much time, is that this
is very hard to change, and you really can't change
the individual. You can only change the system.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
There you go, Now we're talking.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, I knew you. Yeah, So I'm going to go
over the conclusions. So misunderstandings, so they summarize all the
research they have. There's several misunderstandings, but one misunderstanding is
that the implicit attitudes assess prejudice and racism. They don't.
(13:00):
They assess knowledge about groups. They call it associative knowledge
about groups, not hostility toward them. So that distinction is very,
very important. And I hope that when we're talking to
our audience, people know, I mean, you haven't taken the
implicit test, but you might want to. But I took it,
and I have proof that I'm not racist. I mean,
(13:23):
I don't feel explicitly racist, and I've checked my unconscious associations,
and I have warm feelings about black people. I don't know,
I don't have to take one on hispanic and I
have I might not have every group warm feelings about
every group. I'm not sure I do. I kind of
think I may have some concerns about maybe Middle East
(13:46):
people or something like that, but I have unconscious warm
feelings about black people. So if I say something that
points out a difference, that does not mean that I
have hostility. And that's an important distinction that we're losing.
You know that we're losing that. You can't have a difference.
You can't address a difference unless you're hostile. That's really
(14:10):
impossible and it's really not a good way of looking
at racial differences.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Okay, let me understand your statement. You're saying that it
can't be addressed unless it's conscious and hostile. Is that
what you're trying to say.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Well, no, that's not well, maybe let me just skip that.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Let me go back to your invitation for me to
take the test. I'd be glad to take the test.
I'm kind of curious how I might measure when it
comes to black God to take it when it comes
to black and white Asians, Middle East. You know, I'd
be curious. But the bottom line is it's to me,
it's irrelevant. What is relevant is that people have the
(14:50):
freedom to become the best that they can be and
not be hindered, you know, by some other group or
specifically the government, which is what it wants.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
You're focusing on the systemic discrimination, and that's what libertarians
focus on, and that's the right, that's what greenwal says.
That's where we should be. We should find the disparities,
we should nip them in the bud, in the system.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Okay, I applaud that.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, well I figured you would.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Then that's the libertarian and I want to comment that
you can have that, you can address that systemically, and
you can still have unconscious and conscious bias. Those things
can still exist.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Well, that's exactly right, but.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
The best you can do is to fix the system.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Well, you kind of come to it from an intuitive standpoint,
to the same conclusion that he proves from a scientific
stand right, So let me point out that, Okay, implicit
and explicit advices are positively correlated. But here's the two
bottom lines that reflect what you said. With only occasional exceptions,
(16:01):
experimental attempts to reduce long established biases have not found
that they are modifiable, durably modifiable. In other words, this
diversity training is a waste of time because you can
try to change the individual's unconscious bias, but it just
flips back. People have to be in psychotherapy forever or something.
(16:22):
It flips back. Another conclusion, scholarly reviews of the effectiveness
of group administered anti bias or diversity training methods have
not found convincing evidence for their mental or behavioral de
biasing effectiveness. It's a waste of time. It's a waste
of time to try to change people's unconscious And.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Of course I don't like that because that gets it
gets to in well, it gets into the way people think, Yeah,
you're getting into you're getting into mind control.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, that's a very good point.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Which is not where I think the systemic, the systemdemic
change is. Okay, that person has the right to pursue
their goals, and you know, we as a society shouldn't
stand in their way just because he's short, and I
don't like short people. I don't like short people. In fact,
(17:17):
he's not only short, he's ugly, and he's a woman.
He's declaring himself to be a woman even though he's
a man. I hate that guy, but I still don't
have the right to discriminating his way because he has
the right to perform his job and be paid and
recognized for his production.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
For doing the job, doing the job productively. Well, and
this is why this report is so pro libertarian, because
not only are we I had to say we're right,
Greenwall and his authors come to the conclusion that the
best way to deal with implicit bias with implicit bias.
(18:00):
The trouble is, I mean explicit and implicit is just fascinating.
You know, if you take the test, you'll see how
fascinating it is. Would they test how fast you answer
a question? That's your response rate? Is the independent measure?
I mean, how does that relate to anything? But I
mean it's just kind of like spooky stuff that psychologists do.
(18:23):
But the bottom line is that that basically unconscious associations
are not easily changed. And your point is well taken.
Should they be the target of governmental attempts to change
and do mind control?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
No, but they shouldn't and even if they did, they
would do more harm than do it from what I
can tell.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Well, you do get backlash, right, Yeah, that's probably part
of why they're they're finding that diversity training is you
get blowback and you get resistance, and you create problems.
I mean, there's the literature on this is piling up.
You can create problems that aren't there in the first
place by doing some of this stuff. But they agree
(19:10):
on three conclusions about implicit bias. Implicit bias is a
plausible cause for discriminatory behavior. So think about this test
fiftieth percent dile cutoff that psychologists use that discriminates you
know that we have in Louisiana and of course across
the states they use.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
That pertaining to PhD psychology PhD psychologists.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
It is now proven that it has an adverse impact
on blacks, and they're not doing anything about it. No,
I mean, that's got to be some kind of I mean,
it's so obvious what's wrong, and they're not changing it.
And these are the people that wave the flag for
egalitarian behavior.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
That is the epitome of this systemic problem.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
It is, it is the epitome of the systemic problem.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And look at in that particular case, your case from
Louisiana psychologists. The very group that it's supposed to understand
the science and understand what racism is and understand what
systemic racism is, that very group is resistant to fixing
the problem.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yeah, So where is that explicit or is that implicit?
I have to say that's implicit because it makes no sense.
And that's where you get unconscious things that make no sense,
makes no logical sense that they would dismiss us. We
kept beating on their heads all through last year, all
through twenty twenty two, and we just get ignored. We
(20:41):
just get ignored. Well, we'll see what happens with that,
because we're going to the daddy. We're going to daddy.
We're going to go to legislature next. Okay, So a
couple other points and then we'll wrap up. They conclude
that implicit bias is considerably more widespread than generally expected.
So these stereotypes you know, do exist, All of that
(21:01):
does exist. And then they conclude that implicit bias may
produce discriminatory behavior in persons who are unaware of being biased.
You know, they're looking at a lot of really important characteristics.
But they conclude that the way to the conclusions are
disparity finding efforts. So they conclude that libertarians are right
(21:27):
that the best we can do is disparity finding methods
have the advantage of being useful in remediation, not only
for implicit biases, but also for systemic biases. So racism
is different than discrimination. They're people that are hostile. But
you can't change those people easily, and you can't really,
(21:50):
we don't even know if you can change them easily,
but you can change systemic discrimination. And you can do
that if you look for the disparities and then you
begin to see how those pathways have happened, and you
undo those pathways, you.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Take incentives out of the system that caused the problem.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah. So I know that it was a complicated review,
and it's because it's a complicated subject. But it's a
very very important subject, and you know, I kind of
introduced that to us and our audience because we need
to have it introduced.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
This has been a rebroadcast of an earlier episode.
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