How Should We Respond To Bias And Racism?

How should we respond to racism? That depends partially on the degree of racism expressed and experienced. It also partially depends on how the racism was expressed. And it also partially depends on the context in which the racism was was expressed and experienced. But there is at least one other issue here that determines how we should respond to racism. That issue consists of whether the racism expressed was due to an implicit bias only or was an explicit bias also involved.

What is the difference between explicit bias and implicit bias?  The former is held at a conscious level as a result of deliberate thought. The latter is held at an unconscious level and provides a basis for the former. There are other things to note here. We all have implicit biases. And explicit biases are also a result of fear and feeling threatened. And, in terms of people, what makes us feel threatened? The presence of ose who are different from us can make us feel uncomfortable (click here and there for references on the two kinds of bias ).

Why talk about bias and its different kinds here? It is because the article being reviewed tonight is significantly criticizing the Starbucks response to an incident where a manager quickly called 9-1-1 because of the presence of two black men who were sitting at Starbucks waiting for a 3rd person to arrive. Starbucks responded to the incident by firing the employee involved and announcing a plan to close all of its shops on future date so that all of its employees could learn to address implicit biases they might have. And the article's criticism of Starbucks response to the incident by providing training on implicit bias is an inadequate recognition of the problem and response to the racism that was displayed (click here for the article).

The article being reviewed was written by Hina Tai and published by The Guardian. Before reviewing Tai's opinion, here are two factors that should be discussed first.  Those factors consist of our society's tendency to be punitively oriented and its tendency to think in black-white, all-or-nothing terms.

As for our society's tendency for its response to depend too much on punishment to correct those who do wrong is a hangover from our conservative religious founding which has also found its way to progressives and even leftists. To most errors and mistreatment of others, it seems that punishment is not just the first response people call for, it is the only response. As a result, we have our nation's current prison system where prisoners are dehumanized and sorely chastised by both guards and fellow prisoners. The rule of force reigns supreme in prisons and the attitude of many on the outside, especially the attitude of conservatives, is that by punishing people harshly, they would have learned their lesson. Unfortunately, there are many lessons learned in prison because of the dehumanization that occurs there and hardly any of those lessons help a person who is released from prison to be rehabilitated.

But incarceration is not the only form of punishment. Public humiliation, especially via social media, and shaming are other ways that many in society choose to respond to what they don't like. There is a real hatred and desire to harm that lies underneath our eagerness to punish. And being able to find fault with the target of punishment, gives us permission to unleash our hatred and desire for revenge. The irony is that, quite often, part of the act of punishing others often is an exhibition of displacement. 

Another factor we need to consider before reviewing  Tai's negative opinion of Starbucks' response to the racist incident at their store is our tendency to think in black-white, all-or-nothing terms. The label racist is such an example. When we call someone a racist, we obscure how racist the person actually is. Whether one is racist to small or large degree, we use the same label as if there was no difference. And considering that, as the article on implicit bias reported, since we all have implicit biases and some of those biases could be race-based, we find that labeling someone as a racist often removes any attention and examination of ourselves.

In addition, the label 'racist' carries such a negative stigma, with the stigma showing how punitive we are, that it is difficult for us to examine ourselves as to whether we have any racism in ourselves without experiencing a conflict of interest. Certainly racism cannot be tolerated. But in a society that is all too eager to punish, racism becomes well hidden.

So now we get to Tai's opinion piece from the Guardian. Right away, Tai is angry that any credit is being given to Starbucks for their response to the racist incident at one of their Philadelphia stores. For Tai believes that the racism exhibited by the store employee who called the police on the two black men who were waiting there for a third party was an example of explicit bias. And since the Starbucks response was to train people to come to grips with internal bias, that Starbucks should not receive 'praise' for their inadequate response.

Now Tai offers more reasons for her anger. She claims that workshops on implicit bias are there to 'mask' explicit and structural biases that reside at the workplace. She calls such workshops a 'neoliberal PR stunt.' Further more, she notes that one of the experts who will be used by Starbucks in their training on implicit bias comes from the ADL, is a strong supporter for Israel and opposes BDS. Why this poses a problem for her is that an organization like the ADL that supports the oppression of Palestinians is used as a reference to battle implicit bias. She then returns to associating how Starbucks is responding with neoliberalism claiming that neoliberals often co-opt efforts at social justice.

So what we should note about Tia's criticisms of Starbucks is that it fits our society's bent toward punishing others and thinking in all-or-nothing terms. It may be that Starbucks's response to the incident is not adequate; maybe a stronger response is needed. But Tia goes beyond saying that by denying Starbucks any credit for their response. She responds to Starbucks as if they didn't care at all about the incident but just wanted to put on a show for the public. That demonstrates all-or-nothing thinking approach to analyze Starbucks's response.

We should note in commenting on Tia's opinion here that she seems to confuse explicit bias with the intensity of the bias demonstrated. Tia seems to believe that the more biased an action is, the more explicit it becomes. And yet, the difference between explicit and implicit bias lies in the consciousness of the person showing the bias. Explicit bias means that there was deliberate thought put into demonstrating bias. Implicit bias means that the bias expressed was not deliberately thought out, but it was unconscious. Here, we might ask if it is possible for strongly expressed biases to be the result of the unconscious only?

Furthermore, since explicit bias is caused by implicit bias, how is it that explicit bias is not being addressed when our unconscious biases are being exposed?

We should also note that Starbucks stores are not franchises, they are corporately owned. And why that is a factor is because with franchise stores, the franchise owner acts as a buffer for the corporation by absorbing much of the operating costs of the store. With this closing of the stores for one day, Starbucks itself is absorbing all of the financial losses while forgoing any any revenue that would be gained if they were open. 

In addition, that a resource Starbucks is relying on for the workshops happens to be a member of the ADL is insignificant. For though the ADL supports the ethnically-base state of Israel, members of the ADL also know all to well  about being recipients of bias and racism.

Finally, the neoliberal label is intended to smear all capitalist ventures. But the smear does not recognize that some companies are more socially conscious than others. And that social consciousness can be the result of real concern about people. I myself oppose Capitalism, but I have seen in the efforts made by companies like Starbucks a significant degree of social consciousness and that is especially shown in how they hire and how they treat their employees. And just as respecting any business's social consciousness doesn't cause me to favor Capitalism, opposing today's Capitalism, which is called neoliberalism, does not prevent me from giving credit to businesses when they exhibit social consciousness.

It might be that Tia's analysis of the actions taken by Starbucks is at least somewhat accurate. But such a fact does not mean that  Starbucks deserves no recognition for its efforts to address any bias and racism that reside in at least some of its employees.

One final point, I should note that I have never been part of a group that has been marginalized by society. So that might play a role in why my response to Starbucks is more favorable than Tia's, though I don't know if she has experienced societal marginalization either. But regardless of that, the eagerness to punish Starbucks as demonstrated in Tia's attempts to shame them and her all-or-nothing approach to interpreting Starbucks's responses is not the way we should respond to the real faults of any group. Such an approach is most likely contains too much error and shuts off both dialogue as well as the motivation for those being corrected to change.