A Liberal Dose, May 20, 2021
Troy D. Smith
"Systemic Racism and Implicit Bias: What Are They? Part 1"
note: unfortunately, the Sparta Expositor has had to cut the word count of their guest columns in half, so many of my topics will have to be covered in two or more parts from now on.
Last week we discussed how some conservatives (and some
Republican-controlled state legislatures, including our own) have been
following Donald Trump’s lead and freaking out about critical race theory,
often without understanding what it is. We defined that theoretical approach
(it comes from legal studies, and is about the historical connection between
race, slavery, and laws) and other cultural approaches to the study of race.
This week I’m going to give some examples, to more fully demonstrate what I’m talking
about.
Trump’s complaint, you will recall, was not just about an
academic field of study but about the very ideas of privilege, implicit bias,
or “negative” focus on historical racism and/or slavery, which his supporters
say are “divisive concepts.” One Tennessee Republican legislator actually
defended the three-fifths compromise on slavery as a good thing. A GOP leader
in Louisiana said earlier this month that schools should teach all the “good”
things about slavery such as the fact that there were some kind masters who
were beloved by their slaves, implying they were happy in slavery, and said
that anyone believing otherwise is “indoctrinated by leftist, Marxist
education.”
In other words, they are saying nothing bad ever happened,
if it did it wasn’t that bad, and there are no modern-day effects of it. So
let’s take a look at that.
In 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled –in Brown v.
Board of Education –that school segregation was unconstitutional. This decision
was the first of several that would end Jim Crow segregation in general,
although it would take more than a decade. In their ruling, the Court cited the
research of married couple Kenneth and Mamie Clark, both African American
psychologists. In particular, the Court pointed to the “doll tests” the Clarks
had run in the 1940s.
In the experiments, several children –one at a time –were
presented with four baby dolls. The dolls were identical, except that they
ranged in skin tone from Caucasian to dark brown. The children were asked to
pick which doll they wanted to play with –they all chose the Caucasian doll.
They were asked which doll was the most “good” and which the most “bad,” which
was smartest and which was dumbest –which was lazy and which was not.
Invariably, they always chose the white doll as being good and smart, and the
darkest as being bad and dumb.
These were black children.
The Clarks concluded that segregating black children and
reinforcing the fact they were different from all the others made them feel
that black was inferior and undesirable while making the white children feel
superior. Racism, the Clarks wrote, is inherent in American institutions and
reinforced by laws. The Supreme Court agreed (and so did the Eisenhower
administration, which lauded the Court’s decision). Although the Clarks stood
out, many other sociologists, psychologists, and historians were cited in the
Court’s unanimous opinion.
Although the term did not exist at the time… the Court was
swayed by critical race theory.
Academics and others have been saying ever since then that
there is systemic racism in this country, and that as a result people can have
biases they are not even consciously aware of. Those children were probably not
consciously aware of their bias against their own race; their parents did not
sit them down and say “you’re black, therefore you’re terrible, so try your
best to be white.” No, the children absorbed that belief from society around
them. And not just from school segregation, either.
Here’s something that may shock you (and it may not). The
Clarks’ experiments were re-run, with both white and black children, in 2010.
With the exact same results. And again earlier this year. With the same
results.
There it is. systemic racism; implicit bias. If you were
raised in America, you were affected by this whether you wanted to be or not,
and whether you want to admit it or not.
--Troy D.
Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at
Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.
A complete list of "A Liberal Dose" columns can be found HERE
A list of historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE
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