Fundamental Human Nature

One of the realizations we have to face is there is indeed an uneven playing field in America, often referred to as White Privilege. This term refers to the consequence of and provides social meaning to the condition typically cited in academia termed Modern Racism. Although I believe use of White Privilege can be counterproductive by reinforcing group boundaries, it has a poignant effect that raises awareness of the issue. It can also cause a defensive backlash.

It is hoped here that readers can get beyond any reactivity or defensiveness regarding the topic of White Privilege. My intent is to honestly treat the issue with as little political bias as possible. So I urge you to focus on content and not on trying to "read" me.

Granted, overt and even covert discrimination resulting in unfair treatment is now usually unlawful, and great progress has been made socially. We do have to recognize that never before in the history of this country have minority groups suffered less discrimination. But the playing field is still uneven and the U.S. has much more work to do. Moreover, denying there is more work as well as contending with those who are in denial is counterproductive.

It is important to first note a few things. 1) This article will not address conscious and deliberate racism, though it still exists. 2) The objective definition of White Privilege is little more than a label intended to attribute meaning to the uneven correlation between statistics of white and black achievements and their respective population demographics. This has been the evidence used to attribute to our society, a yet racially segregated "playing field." 3) The realm of reality people operate within involves and has everything to do with meaning. We operate on the meanings we associate to all objects within the reality we construct - meanings we associate to people, places, things, events and situations. Utility, or function (practicality), typically sits second-fiddle to meaning. This involves all of what people consciously think about and communicate. In this article I attempt to invoke utility in the discussion first, then tie it to meaning.

To explain the analogy of the playing field a little more, the legal aspect of the playing field is fairly level. However, whites on average tend to start a little closer to the 50 yard line while blacks tend to start closer to the opposing end zone - and it is steeper as you move toward the end zone. Moreover, although whites and blacks are on the same team, they don't always act like they are. Since the forward end of the playing field is predominantly white (because of where the two groups started), due to the group-wise socially gregarious nature of people (we tend to hang out with people most like us), whites may get more help reaching the goal line than blacks.

I believe this uneven playing field has two primary components: 1) the history of economic disadvantage, and 2) social disadvantage (past as well as present).

Research reveals that a family's economic status tends to be a tradition (the apple doesn't fall far from the socioeconomic tree). Since blacks have a long history of economic disadvantage, statistically speaking at least, the group thus has economically disadvantaged roots. When one looks at the statistics of achieving higher levels of success such as executive management or political positions, since the statistics also show that those who achieve such positions typically come from highly economically advantaged families, blacks from the get-go have even more disadvantage in achieving those positions (evidenced by the very low percentage of blacks in those positions). But this also applies to those from white families who are not in the upper tiers of socioeconomic status - few of them rise to such levels of success.

There are also forces of past and present social disadvantage, although they are very different (past was mostly explicit while the present is mostly implicit). This underpins the very sensitive and often emotionally-charged nature of the White Privilege topic. The primary force underpinning this disadvantage is the elusive but physiologically-real "color-coded" system (I'll call CCS) that all of us has (confirmed across disciplines). This system deep in our brains automatically detects and processes observable differences in appearances in others. Consequently, we generally tend to prefer associating with those who look like us the most. This is the main force behind past and present racism, but it is also the implicit, socially preferential thinking and behavior that still exists today. This is the group-wise socially gregarious tendency mentioned above. The key point is this tendency is automatic - we aren't aware of it when it is processing - only afterwards when we're ready to act.

There are other functions (or fundamental tendencies) of the human psyche that elaborate and enhance this CCS, but such is a considerable discussion and the focus of my doctoral research with years of work remaining.

Regarding our CCS, recent advances in neuroscience has been the latest development confirming what we've already observed in psychology (i.e. Implicit Association Test). For instance, the area of the brain identified as being central to this CCS, called the amygdala (often considered a member of the lower-level of brain functioning), lights up in brain scans when race-related visual stimuli is presented. This is interpreted as our brains automatically raising alarm because we encounter someone with different skin color. Raising alarm is a main function of the amygdala.

If race-related stimuli is presented slow enough to be consciously recognized, other regions of the brain light up as well - regions widely held as mediators of lower-level brain function (portions of the frontal lobe). In other words, these other areas of our brain serve to intercept, calm and otherwise redirect automatic responses originating in the amygdala - before such affects behavior.

However, if race stimuli is presented too quickly for people to be consciously aware of it, the amygdala lights up alone. This is where we can get into trouble because we can make quick decisions we aren’t even consciously aware of that can cause us to be biased against someone of a different race. If we mix that with our tendency to stay in our comfort zone, we can easily exhibit a form of unintentional, covert racist behavior. From there we may justify our behavior with rationale we construct, and once we do we may attribute such rationale to similar situations ever the more. But it doesn't have to be this way (more on this later).

The key fact to realize is that our brains will raise alarm and induce fear automatically and independently of our conscious awareness, and just because it happens doesn’t mean it is warranted. By the time we become aware of our arousal we may have already “guessed” as to why alarm and fear occurred, and are ready to act. When it comes to race, we have readily available social constructs from our culture to help us make these guesses. Consequently, we may already blame something or someone before we are actually aware of what is going on. Again, just because we associated a cause doesn’t mean it was the cause. With past, overt racism, the cause would often be attributed to race. Today, such is not acceptable so cause is attributed elsewhere. The important concept here is to not be concerned with what cause to attribute, but rather learn how to stop the alarm processing before it even begins.

One important takeaway from the research above may be the need to educate and empower people to build the habit of overriding automatic thinking. Since the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (CCS mediator) is considered one of the last regions of the brain to develop, educational opportunity abounds in K-12 to help student's develop their prefrontal cortexes (frontal lobes, generally speaking) toward this end.

Since America is a predominantly individualistic and universalistic culture with an affinity to want to do things automatically, quickly and based on universal rules, we spend the lion's share of thinking rationalizing post hoc our CCS-driven thinking and behavior. If we were to retrain our automatic responses, specifically our racial preferences, we'd probably see a leveling of at least the in-play aspect of the playing field.

In Corporate America, we value thinking quickly on our feet - viewing the good manager as a decisive manager who can “execute”. What I have observed resulting from this is the common habit to act first and think later - and the thinking is usually to rationalize the actions (this is more prevalent in individualistic cultures like the U.S.).

One potential result may be unofficial social networks emerge in the workplace based on race boundaries without us intending to build them or even realizing they exist. This would be a problem since the social capital generated by membership in the social networks of the decision-makers can tip decisions for who gets promoted. If the social networks of the decision-makers are mostly comprised of whites, blacks not in the group may have less of a chance.

Corporate America's sociopolitical landscape is one manifestation of the social-disadvantage-engendering component that can elude detection but always tangible in its effects. Such manifestation can develop and operate below our level of awareness. Why are we so unaware? We are not aware of the process of thinking as it occurs, and are usually aware of only the results of completed thought processes. The reason is energy economy - we have a physiological goal to expend the least amount of energy dealing with the world around us, and automatic thinking expends the least amount of energy (though the end result may not be). Although this may be "default" human nature, with education and practice we can change so our automatic thinking, namely our CCS, does not drive our thought and behavior.

Robert Jackall in his book, Moral Mazes, paints a rhetorically robust and vivid picture of Corporate America’s sociopolitical jungle, if you’re interested. After reading it one can easily see how such CCS-guided social networks can adversely impact blacks moving up the ladder when the power networks are predominantly white. However, it is important to note that this is only half of the social disadvantage not all of it!

Take a look at the video below to get more of an idea what the other half is. Keep in mind the high performing group (in the video) is the socially advantaged group and all the others are not. In the context of this discussion, those high performing people could be considered white while the rest are black. The phenomenon revealed in the video is the main force underpinning the implicit social disadvantage most blacks face today. One major result is the sustaining of past social disadvantage (roles) - that I believe still haunts America's black population.

Human beings tend to automatically assume roles, and within our culture exists many historical black roles, such as blacks commit most of the crimes and blacks are inferior while whites are superior. These roles are of course false on every scientific ground - especially genetic grounds. But these roles are reinforced implicitly in the media, in government assistance programs, through affirmative action, and especially in the public schools (via proxy by allowing the human tendency to vie for and assume social roles to develop and flourish). This is not to say that well-implemented assistance and affirmative action programs shouldn't exist in efficient, dignified and fairest forms. However, they can serve to reinforce these roles (this is yet another and involved discussion).

Unfortunately, the internal force to meet role expectations whether real or perceived is nonetheless powerful that too often result in blacks and whites assuming their race-segregated roles. This is grossly unfair (to both actually) and very unfortunate, but a real problem I believe falls into the repertoire of issues we should target.

So what is this force contributing to the disadvantaging of blacks?

The human psyche is an open system, and when they come in contact with each other, another system - a "meta" system of sorts emerges. One tip of this meta system iceberg is revealed by the finding called the Pygmalion Effect (AKA Self-Fulfilling Prophesy - the name of the phenomenon in the video below). This involves a feed back loop where meaning is associated to selected information from the loop. However, this meaning doesn't really come from other people. It instead comes from our perception of, and the meaning we associate to, what we observe or think we observe in others. This meta system has at least one faulty purpose:determine social roles and expectations.

As an example of where this can cause trouble, behavior in a white person can trigger in an observing black person the pressure to assume an inferior role - regardless of whether this is what the white person intended. The black person may have alarms going off or it is subtle enough he or she simply assumes the role. Their subdued performance may register in the white person as them being inferior and trigger in them to take a superior role, and/or contribute beneath their awareness to their beliefs blacks are inferior. They may somehow convey to the next black person their subconscious expectation of low performance. Conscious intention may or may not be involved. The system works regardless of conscious intent or even awareness it is working.

So, perhaps in our everyday lives, we may want to be more aware of these tendencies and always question our assumptions and expectations. We may want to think a little more deliberately, and critically, if we want to be an effective egalitarian.

When you watch the video below, keep in mind that the instructor's subconscious expectations, which did not match what he consciously believed, subtly and implicitly had a significant impact on his trainees - resulting in significant differences in their behavior and performance.

Self-Fulfilling Prophesy - example experiment.