To help evangelicals grapple with the problems
of implicit racial bias, Christian leaders must come to realize how deeply and personally experienced these problems are for so many in society and in the church.
Note: This article has been updated to reflect Starbucks» announcement to shut down their business
for implicit racial bias training.
Much research has been conducted in recent years
on implicit racial bias and how it manifests itself even in the most well - intentioned individuals.
Starting in prekindergarten, black boys and girls were disciplined at school far more than their white peers in 2013 - 2014, according to a government analysis of data that
said implicit racial bias was the likely cause of these continuing disparities.
I'll tell you what's wrong with it — in the former case, we're talking about a real and alarming trend
reflecting implicit racial bias, whereas in the latter («killing spree») case, we're talking about a one - off.
Legal and social science scholars have grappled with the challenge of accurately assessing remorse, but no one has analyzed
whether implicit racial bias skews remorse assessments at criminal sentencing in predictable and systematically discriminatory ways.
Recently, the Yale Child Study Center
identified implicit racial bias among early educators as a likely source of the disproportionate punishment received by black boys.
Yet researchers have concluded that the majority of people in the United States hold some degree
of implicit racial bias» (Roberts, 2011).
If their intervention to
reduce implicit racial bias is effective in that setting as well, they hope to develop a more consumer - friendly version of their training sessions: a fun, gamified app that could be used in schools and at home.
Starbucks has since apologized for the incident and announced that it plans to close all 8,000 of it's U.S. stores
for implicit racial bias training, which is both appropriate and proves that this is about something much larger than one isolated incident: this is about the ubiquitous, cultural fear of black people.
Before and after they experience the false physicality, the volunteers take a test that measures
their implicit racial bias.
A day after each training, children took
the implicit racial bias test again.
For school leaders and teachers alike,
implicit racial bias can influence responses and decision - making on the job.
But researchers have concluded that a majority of people in the United States have some form of
implicit racial bias.
They also measured
their implicit racial bias using the Black - White Implicit Association Test, which gauges unconscious attitudes about race that people may be unaware of or unwilling to report, and which shows that about 50 per cent of black Americans hold anti-black bias.