Episode 29: Mission Creep (On Carrying Implicit Bias Too Far)

ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Talk of implicit bias has moved far beyond its origin in psychology. It's spread to law journals, it informs training in many workplaces (including one famous coffeeshop chain (https://news.starbucks.com/press-releases/starbucks-to-close-stores-nationwide-for-racial-bias-education-may-29)), and it's entered popular discourse. Does that ubiquity carry risks? What balls are we potentially taking our eyes off of when we focus on implicit bias? These are the kinds of issues addressed in my conversation with Jonathan Kahn, the James E. Kelley Chair in Tort Law at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law, and author of the book Race on the Brain.
LINKS
--Jonathan Kahn's Mitchell Hamline webpage (https://mitchellhamline.edu/biographies/person/dr-jonathan-kahn/)
--Race on the Brain: What Implicit Bias Gets Wrong About the Struggle for Racial Justice, by Jonathan Kahn (https://www.amazon.com/Race-Brain-Implicit-Struggle-Justice/dp/0231184247)
--Project Implicit (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/)
--"How the GI Bill left out African Americans," by David Callahan (Demos) (https://www.demos.org/blog/11/11/13/how-gi-bill-left-out-african-americans)
--Racism Without Racists, by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (https://www.amazon.com/Racism-without-Racists-Color-Blind-Persistence/dp/1442276231/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=FVYNRHR64CMPPEK2PX0X)
--"The American civil rights tradition: Anticlassification or antisubordination?" by Jack Balkin and Reva Siegel (https://law.yale.edu/system/files/documents/pdf/Faculty/Siegel_TheAmericanCivilRightsTraditionAnticlassificationOrAntisubordination.pdf)
--"Chief Justice out to end affirmative action," by Jeffrey Toobin (CNN) (https://www.cnn.com/2013/02/28/opinion/toobin-roberts-voting-rights-act/index.html)
--"Sotomayor accuses colleagues of trying to 'wish away' racial inequality," by Robert Barnes (Washington Post) (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sotomayor-accuses-colleagues-of-trying-to-wish-away-racial-inequality/2014/04/22/e5892f90-ca49-11e3-93eb-6c0037dde2ad_story.html?utm_term=.703dbfd627fa) Special Guest: Jonathan Kahn.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Talk of implicit bias has moved far beyond its origin in psychology. It's spread to law journals, it informs training in many workplaces (including one famous coffeeshop chain), and it's entered popular discourse. Does that ubiquity carry risks? What balls are we potentially taking our eyes off of when we focus on implicit bias? These are the kinds of issues addressed in my conversation with Jonathan Kahn, the James E. Kelley Chair in Tort Law at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law, and author of the book Race on the Brain.

LINKS

--Jonathan Kahn's Mitchell Hamline webpage

--Race on the Brain: What Implicit Bias Gets Wrong About the Struggle for Racial Justice, by Jonathan Kahn

--Project Implicit

--"How the GI Bill left out African Americans," by David Callahan (Demos)

--Racism Without Racists, by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

--"The American civil rights tradition: Anticlassification or antisubordination?" by Jack Balkin and Reva Siegel

--"Chief Justice out to end affirmative action," by Jeffrey Toobin (CNN)

--"Sotomayor accuses colleagues of trying to 'wish away' racial inequality," by Robert Barnes (Washington Post)

Special Guest: Jonathan Kahn.