Effective and ineffective ways of addressing racial bias
November 16, 2016 7:06 PM   Subscribe

German Lopez reports for Vox on recent research about methods for addressing bias and prejudice. "As much as it might seem like a lost cause to understand the perspectives of people who may qualify as racist, understanding where they come from is a needed step to being able to speak to them in a way that will help reduce the racial biases they hold."
posted by zeusianfog (70 comments total) 39 users marked this as a favorite
 
This Community Response Guide from the SPLC may be helpful on broader-scale actions, as well.
posted by eviemath at 7:20 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


https://youtu.be/ZPDpcYEdiOg

As soon as I hear "White Fragility"
posted by jcking77 at 7:21 PM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]


My brother in law did a fine job of summarizing this article on Facebook:

"if you want equality be ready to plead your case as non threateningly as possible because your right to be is already seen as a hostility"
posted by subtle_squid at 7:23 PM on November 16, 2016 [43 favorites]


Wow! I'm definitely looking forward to white people tossing this link at me whenever I call anything racist! In fact, I should write my form response already:

"It looks like you think my sole purpose on earth is to act as a benevolent educator to your ignorant af white ass! Have you considered:

A) I'm not talking to you, I'm relating to other POC, and it's awfully telling you think my only audience when I write on race relations is white people.

B) I'm a real life person with feelings about racism too!

C) Sometimes, I have other goals than big lofty political dreams of saving all white people, like, I dunno, getting people to stop being racist at my face right now!

Check all that apply."
posted by Conspire at 7:42 PM on November 16, 2016 [67 favorites]


This is exactly why it's important for allies to take this job on - asking PoC or trans people to remain calm about their rights being threatened it a lot to ask for, but allies should realize that it is easier for them.

Still, it takes practice. So practice.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:43 PM on November 16, 2016 [16 favorites]


Also, if any of you are actually thinking of tossing this link at a POC as a lazy way to shut them up the next time we say anything that you don't like, I admire your lack of self awareness in regards to your own defensiveness.
posted by Conspire at 7:49 PM on November 16, 2016 [18 favorites]


I'd like to see more research on changing people's attitudes around bias and prejudice connect that to education research, where we know a fair amount already about what promotes effective learning environments to help people unlearn and replace even fundamental misconceptions on various topics.

When it comes to bias and prejudice, however, the problem is not really that individuals hold conscious or unconscious biases and prejudices, the problem is the harmful effects this can cause for others when prejudice is combined with power. Reducing harmful behaviors, eg. of sexual harassment and sexual violence, can be accomplished by changing social norms, eg. away from rape culture, as well as by directly educating individuals to change their internal biases and prejudices that facilitate them acting in harmful ways. Like the sort of conversations the research in this article looked at, this is also a seemingly indirect way of influencing people's actions (and a way, though even more indirect, of influencing their internal perspective and intentions, since most people are susceptible to peer pressure to varying degrees). It seems to be a more speedily effective and scalable intervention than efforts at individual education, however (which is kind of important for people whose safety and well-being are on the line now). 'Course, as the SPLC guide describes, providing a specific alternative that people can work toward and feel good about themselves for achieving steps toward is also useful to the changing social norms strategy for reducing incidences of biased and prejudiced behavior. As is addressing the systemic issues that give some people's individual biases and prejudices the power to cause harmful effects.
posted by eviemath at 7:53 PM on November 16, 2016 [5 favorites]


I think this is more an article for white people to talk to their white people. many of us love our racist family and have to talk to them somehow, we don't really have a sarcasm option.
posted by eustatic at 7:55 PM on November 16, 2016 [31 favorites]


Please don't immediately respond to pleas for more empathy with anger and sarcasm about a related, but separate, issue. Please be supportive of people at least trying to find a way to deal with a very challenging issue.

Be angry, but please be angry at people who are actually causing harm.

It should go without saying that you're not required to do or say anything. I realize that, in some contexts, it doesn't; but the need for people to actually bridge the chasms that seem to be forming is critical. It's needed serious efforts for some time. Many people don't know what the heck to do. Please don't discourage them. Please encourage them, a lot, if you have energy for it, and if you don't, please don't discourage them.

If what you mean to say is "yes, more empathy, but it can never be _required_ of anyone", then I agree that it's incredibly important (otherwise you wind up with the incredibly toxic cultures that some church groups are known for, among other things).
posted by amtho at 8:02 PM on November 16, 2016 [22 favorites]


Can you maybe not accuse us of things that literally no one in this thread is doing, Conspire?
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 8:02 PM on November 16, 2016 [10 favorites]


I can empathize with the anger in response to this article, because in some ways it's like the ultimate tone argument, and as we've discussed time and again, the problem with the tone argument is that no matter how honeyed your words, some people will never, ever be receptive to your message. In my encounters with the cheerfully bigoted, I've often found myself stumped at how to proceed considering how radically different our premises are. How do you build on common ground when there's no common ground to be found?
posted by zeusianfog at 8:16 PM on November 16, 2016 [11 favorites]


I understand where you're coming from, Conspire. In the wake of the election, I can't count the number of times I've heard pleas, almost invariably from white liberals, to not write off Trump voters, to try to understand their racism and not call them names or even understand that they really weren't being racist at all and it was all just about their "economic anxiety" or something. At first, it filled me with rage but now, it's just become incredibly exhausting. I don't want to educate white people on why it's wrong to want to ban people who are my friends and family members from this country or to put them on a registry. I don't want to avoid calling them racist when they are being really fucking racist in a way that is causing me and people I love actual harm.

Perhaps articles like this one make sense as a means for white people who have racist family members to speak to them and attempt to reduce their bias. However, when aimed at minorities, these kinds of things feel really silencing. A man just won the presidency after a campaign entirely centered around scapegoating and insulting minorities. A lot of us feel incredibly vulnerable right now. Being told that we can't even name racism, when we see it, for fear of losing the votes of racists, just makes the whole situation feel even more like a personal fuck you to each one of us.
posted by armadillo1224 at 8:19 PM on November 16, 2016 [46 favorites]


Attacking people who would like to see themselves as your allies is certainly safer than attacking the people who see you as their enemy . . . in the short run.

I'm not sure what is meant by this comment. Do you mean that our allies will start being racists if we're mean to them? If so, their allyship was more about ego than any sincere belief anyway.
posted by armadillo1224 at 8:24 PM on November 16, 2016 [10 favorites]


How do you actually defeat racism? What strategies are more effective?
posted by amtho at 8:30 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is actually, really a thing, this cognitive-behavioral psychology approach proposing that expressing anger, criticism, and using racial terminology (e.g. racist, microaggressions, etc.) are in practice ineffective, counterproductive, etc.

One of its premises is already mentioned in the article: the hypothesis that human beings are simply not wired to be take criticism well, because a state of perceived threat is almost guaranteed to interfere with higher-level cognitive abilities. What some sociologists and psychologists try to argue is that it therefore follows that a more "effective" way for conflict resolution, based on "science", is to de-escalate (actually that's a huge and ultimately rather patronizing oversimplification of the therapeutic/thought process involved). And so there are therapy techniques, etc., that are theorized to enhance one's ability to self-regulate emotionally. CBT is widespread in contemporary therapy for complicated reasons, and this article is just taking the principles of this "evidence-based" approach in modern psychology, and somehow scaling it up in application to social conflicts.

There are other schools of social psychology that take serious issue with the above framework, and the article doesn't mention those at all. Nevertheless, the applied cognitive-behavioral psychology approach is appealing in its clarity, usability, accessibility. It remains to be seen whether this effort will make a difference, socially; and of course the research in this and related areas are ongoing.
posted by polymodus at 8:30 PM on November 16, 2016 [37 favorites]


Oh my god I would never expect a POC to take this on, unless they wanted to.

This is work white people need to do with their fellow white people.

The thing is, at least the people in my fam I'm thinking of, they always do know some POC that they like; Indian doctor, random black acquaintance, nice Iranian guy who runs the auto-repair shop. I can see value in pushing them to remember those folks, and think about the impact of racist laws on them. Making it less "hey fam stop being racist" as "hey fam, racist laws hurt people you like, doesn't that bother you?"

And some may not care! Or deny! Or whatever! Gotta start somewhere.

But yeah, POC can just walk on by this one.
posted by emjaybee at 8:37 PM on November 16, 2016 [23 favorites]


This is actually, really a thing, this cognitive-behavioral psychology approach proposing that expressing anger, criticism, and using racial terminology (e.g. racist, microaggressions, etc.) are in practice ineffective, counterproductive, etc.

This strongly presupposes what a desired outcome looks like, no? That's a huge problem with this stuff-- I think it's useful to understand the psychology of white fragility even if it's different from how we might like it to be, but making determinations about "effectiveness" or "productivity" automatically invokes a pretty heavy slate of political assumptions.
posted by zokni at 8:43 PM on November 16, 2016 [5 favorites]


That is to say, the narrative inherently centers and privileges whiteness by presuming that the desired outcome is something like "slowly change attitudes through the leverage of emotional labor and social institutions" whereas for many people, particularly people of color, a more pressingly desired anti-racist outcome might be "get this person the fuck away from me".
posted by zokni at 8:47 PM on November 16, 2016 [25 favorites]


This strongly presupposes what a desired outcome looks like, no? That's a huge problem with this stuff-- I think it's useful to understand the psychology of white fragility even if it's different from how we might like it to be, but making determinations about "effectiveness" or "productivity" automatically invokes a pretty heavy slate of political assumptions.

Exactly, but as a Person of Color and LGBT member in therapy, it's not my role to perform critique. With my being a leftist academic, you can imagine how difficult that must have been initially. Talking to my therapist about whether my neighbor was "racist" felt like I was being gaslighted in the therapy room. So now you can get a sense of that.

Your concern (about centering, labor) is exactly what I mean by "other schools of thought" not getting discussed. Because that's where I came from; I was very much against CBT initially. If white people want to figure out how social psychology should do things correctly, all the more power to them. Cause the way it is, I've read a shit ton of papers on the subject, not really for fun, if you know what I mean.
posted by polymodus at 8:51 PM on November 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


The thing is you're not trying to convince people that know they're racist, you're trying to educate people that are being racist without wanting to be racist, right? I think that would be the difference, whether the person is just clueless. I'm from rural Quebec, it's about as white-washed as it comes. I live in Montreal now, which is lovely and multicultural, but I do have friends and family that never really got out of the rural areas, don't own computers, only talk to their little circles. If they said something racist/sexist/homophobic etc, I would speak up and say why I thought what they said was insensitive. I know they're not doing it to be assholes. I feel like it's kind of my job to at least make them think about their words.

If your whole life is just hearing that stuff though, I could absolutely understand just not wanting to deal with that at all. I've got this!
posted by Hazelsmrf at 8:53 PM on November 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


How do you build on common ground when there's no common ground to be found?

You can't. I teach college writing, and one of the most crucial concepts I've learned in my pedagogical training is stasis theory. Basically, in order to have a productive argument, there has to be a point at which the sides agree to disagree. So if the two parties can't agree that, say, POC are just as deserving of rights as white people, the argument won't get anywhere. If both sides do agree on the above premise, but disagree about whether certain proposed policies are racist, then that opens the door for the person with anti-racist views to successfully convince the other person that the policies are problematic.

It seems like the article is suggesting techniques for finding the point of stasis, if there is one, so that productive discussions can happen from there. In the example of Virginia and Gustavo, for instance, the two parties were able to agree that it's important to love and treat people well, even if those people are different from you. That agreement allowed Virginia to show Gustavo how transgender rights laws are about treating people well, even if they're different from you.

And yes, agree with everyone saying this kind of work is absolutely the responsibility of white people, NOT POC. I do wish that this article, among many others I've read since the election, had taken subject position into greater account.
posted by come_back_breathing at 8:57 PM on November 16, 2016 [19 favorites]




This article should be titled:

Hey White People Listen Up Here is Some Research That Shows What You Can Do to Reduce Racial Bias


It's also missing a discussion about context and timing.

Like for instance someone is experiencing a racially motivated attack - not the time for empathy and engagement like this
You're on the frontline facing off against 'Rebranded White Nationalists' don't use these techniques.
You need a guy to shut up and get out of you and your POC's friends face because you just want to get your coffee in peace.
Or maybe your tired, it's been a long day and you don't have time to have a nice chat with the person calling the woman across the road the 'N' word but you want to make sure he knows it's unacceptable and that he isn't going to be able to do it without getting called on it.


Timing and context matters.
posted by Jalliah at 8:58 PM on November 16, 2016 [40 favorites]


Hey, Conspire, great points.

And yeah, if this is just for white people that should be pointed out in the article.
posted by zutalors! at 9:02 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


Like, it's hardly shocking that PoC would read a piece on a major website and somehow have an opinion on it.
posted by zutalors! at 9:03 PM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]


@emjaybee - it's been a bit, but I've read a little on the "that one friend" hypothesis. I have a feeling POC here might confirm what I read, which is that, with an entrenched ideology, that one friend is treated as an exception to a rule, while the rule remains unchallenged. (Because as friends, like other friends who are not POC [on the theory I was reading at the time], they are experienced as a kind of extension of the self. "Near to me" = "more like me", but unsure if it ends up being leveraged too far beyond that, always.

@zokni - perfectly understandable, in the moment - but don't we all agree that other good outcomes are fewer Trumpians, and fairer distribution of resources and power?

I think I'm with eviemath as far as ideas about getting at those longer term goals - norms, representation...

(I know it's tired, but I also think the perception of economic security does matter, and can help when it's there, inasmuch as it's at least not an impediment - maybe more accurate to say that when the perception of economic threat is there, it makes things worse. NB I am emphasizing "perception".)
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:08 PM on November 16, 2016


So that's my hot take on it :/ Sorry.

Yeah, no POC should feel obliged to do any of the handholding EL described in the article (which agree, wasn't clear at all about its target audience). And it makes sense to me that it might be read as a call to do that.
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:21 PM on November 16, 2016


I think of this as tips and tricks for hacking into belief systems.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:27 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


Those who are hurting want to be heard, white or PoC. No one even needs to agree with what the Other is saying. All that's needed is to be able to look beyond one's own hurt long enough to hear the Other, and that by itself, is a difficult ocean.
posted by storybored at 9:32 PM on November 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


I got to the part where it talks about what "white people" hear when someone uses terms like "privilege" and "implicit bias" and it explains that these poor white people just can't help but hear these as slurs and justifications for marginalizing white people, and my personal reaction is, "I'm sorry you're too stupid to properly understand terms that, if you are unfamiliar with them, can be readily explained with five minutes of research or a thirty-second conversation with a knowledgeable party. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

This does not increase my empathy for the stupid motherfuckers. I will continue to try to explain such things to people when the opportunity arises, but fucking hell, even the excuses for why white people suck boil down to white privilege and the fact that they've never needed to exert themselves in the arena of empathy and solidarity before and when given the opportunity to do so actively and vociferously choose otherwise.

(Because it's the internet and no one knows you're a dog, I should clarify that I am possibly the whitest motherfucker ever to gleam blindingly in the sunlight.)
posted by Scattercat at 9:49 PM on November 16, 2016 [28 favorites]


Based on that study, it sounds like a more effective use of their time would be Vox (and other media outlets) publishing articles empathizing with people of color and other marginalized people so that their white audiences can practice empathizing with others.
posted by Deoridhe at 10:23 PM on November 16, 2016 [17 favorites]


I'm a therapist and this just sounds like Motivational Interviewing 101: ask open ended questions, make positive affirmations, ask reflective questions, and summarize what the other person is saying to demonstrate listening all the while rolling with resistance, avoiding argumentation, and gently working to ask questions to develop discrepancy between the person's statements and their actions. I agree that this sounds like work for white allies. Marginalized communities should never have to be in a position where they have to educate others in how to not be abusive. This, however, is constantly expected and is exhausting, taking away from energy that could more effectively be focused elsewhere.

I work with populations living in addiction and while I would love to say that presenting logical facts is enough to change people's minds, logical arguments do nothing in the face of emotional reasoning. If our goal is to increase understanding, those of us in a position of privilege have an obligation to have these conversations in the most effective ways we can. Studies like this are helpful but I think there needs to be a huge disclaimer in who they are intended for and who is responsible for utilizing the findings.
posted by pugh at 3:39 AM on November 17, 2016 [24 favorites]


At this point, I'm too angry at my fellow white people to be patient. I'm kind of done with pussy-footing around white fragility and being soothing and empathizing. I've been hearing a lot about how it's my responsibility as a white person to fix racist white people, and after 25 fucking years of trying, and talking and listening, I'm pissed off that it has basically been fruitless. They fucking won a president, goddamn it!

I've been trying to think through why I'm so pissed off, and I guess what it comes down to is that I--a person raised in a family who lived in generations of white flight sundown towns and denial--kicked and scratched my solitary way to another way of thinking. No one told me I had to be different. I could have easily kept right on keeping on, like pretty much every single person I knew back in the suburban bubble I could have stayed in.

I'm trying to remember why things changed for me. I was 21 years old, and I was expected to teach high school kids of color who I instantly saw knew more than me about a whole lot of things. I saw my ignorance and racism as a flaw in my education, and sought to fix it. I read books I still to this day have never seen another white person read. I opened myself up to militant Black rage, and listened and tried hard to understand. Somehow, a few times, exhausted Black people saw potential in my efforts and took the time to direct me, and talk to me about what they were feeling. I spent many sleepless nights battling my defensiveness, my discomfort, and finding my way through contradictory thought patterns. I have never ever allowed myself to think "I'm there. I'm a better person now" for more than a minute. I'm always forcing myself to examine any sense of arrogance inherent in "I'm an ally."

Anyway, I'm watching people on FB tell me I'm supposed to reach across the aisle and listen to these people, and the thought makes me want to vomit. I door-knocked during the run-up to the election and the verbal abuse and denial and insanity I experienced was repugnant. I would say that I feel traumatized, but then I think that's pathetic. However, I'm thoroughly tired of lazy-ass white people who refuse to take the first step toward being a better person.

So until I can look a racist in the face without wanting to punch him/her, I'm putting my energy toward people who deserve it. I'm going to do the work I was already doing: using my privilege to amplify the voices I know need to be heard--the ones the racists don't want to hear. I've been working for months on an oral history project in my community, recording the voices of African-American elders, telling their life stories, and archiving them for posterity. I'm training young people with African heritage to be oral historians, and as they take what they've learned and use it, I'm watching them connect and blossom and it's fucking fantastic.

For now, holding white fragile hands is going to have to be the job of nicer people than me.
posted by RedEmma at 4:35 AM on November 17, 2016 [32 favorites]


I'm pissed off that it has basically been fruitless

Be angry, but: what you aren't seeing is how the world would be if you, and people like you, _hadn't_ made that effort. It could have been worse. The results of your effort are not measurable, which makes them hard to enjoy.

The fact that we don't see the results of this kind of work is a real problem, too, though. In a small community, you could witness people's attitudes evolving, watch kids grow up to be kind and thoughtful, see neighbors relaxing and start to feel comfortable enough to, say, grow flowers or volunteer for things.

In this huge ocean of text we swim in, though, all that gets noticed is the rantings of people whose minds haven't yet been changed, so, even if some of them come around, the effect is a neverending stream of the same old attitudes.
posted by amtho at 5:01 AM on November 17, 2016 [7 favorites]


"I'm sorry you're too stupid to properly understand terms that, if you are unfamiliar with them, can be readily explained with five minutes of research or a thirty-second conversation with a knowledgeable party. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

I empathise with the sentiment here, but it makes me wince too. There certainly are some people who have the education and background to make it easy for them to assimilate these terms with five minutes of research, but who choose not to because they frankly don't care about other people's lives. I'd put Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter and others like them in this category. I believe these people are impervious to reason, because they don't actually care about what's true and what's false, only about their team winning or losing. Their position is so fundamentally dishonest that I think it's a waste of time to argue with them. The only thing to do is to work to reduce their influence in the world.

But lots of casual racists I've met in normal life, here in the UK anyway, are not like that. They are basically not that interested in questions of social justice, and become defensive when confronted with problems of social justice, despite being basically non-sociopathic people with a genuine vague belief that everyone should be treated well and no one should be hurt. I think ideas like systemic racism and implicit bias are truly hard to understand if you have this mindset. You can google them but they won't seem persuasive to you unless you are already used to thinking of society as a system of historically conditioned power relations and already have some knowledge of how things got to be the way they are. If your basic worldview is that society is just a series of contextless atomised individual interactions between people, "white people have implicit bias" will always sound like an accusation to your ear. It's not about being stupid or unable to google. It's about lacking the context to make sense of the idea.

I would never say "implicit bias" to anyone in this category, if they get talking to me on the bus about all these immigrants or some story in the Daily Mail, because I know that would just be wasted words. I'm also personally cautious about saying the word "racist" in these situations, because I don't think that would make me safer -- if they've already started talking to me, a brown person on the bus, it's because they've decided I'm an acceptable one and I have no desire to find out what might happen if I rock that boat. But I have found it's sometimes possible to move the needle a little bit, in these conversations, by telling counter-stories - my immigrant parents, my friend from maligned country X, my own experience.

I think the article is right that, if you want to move this needle for the mass of vaguely prejudiced people in homogenous communities, you do it by moving away from abstract concepts (racism, bias, system, context) and towards flesh and blood stories ("I'm gay"). But of course we may have other goals than moving the needle for them. On the bus, my aim is just to get home safe. In conversations with my friends or colleagues, or policy-makers, my aim is to make sure that the problems are properly diagnosed and addressed and that can't be done without the abstract ideas. In calling out racism and nonsense from Milo and company, the goal is to discredit their voices in the public square and spreading informed criticism online is a good way to do that. But there is also some work to be done in moving the needle for people who don't think in abstract terms about race, gender and society, and whoever is doing that work should probably do it in this way.
posted by Aravis76 at 5:45 AM on November 17, 2016 [27 favorites]


Didn't RTFA. Don't need to. I'm surrounded by privileged white men who have been openly racist and sexist in front of me. I've made my feelings known and they ignore me because they think I'm one of them and even though I'm visibly disgusted I obviously just can't take a joke. Here's the most effective way of dissuading them of their vocal racism and sexism - include women and POC in the group. It doesn't change the fact that they're racist and sexist but the shit talk sure does stop when they're in the company of a woman or an african american.

Cowards.
posted by photoslob at 7:25 AM on November 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


Where are all the thinkpieces and podcasts to help conservatives understand the other side? If they exist, I really want to know.

You don't need them if you're convinced you're right.

I saw something on FB that sums it up: "if you want to piss off a conservative, tell them a lie. If you want to piss off a liberal, tell them the truth"
posted by dr_dank at 9:33 AM on November 17, 2016


I am perplexed that so many of the "how to reduce racism" arguments assume it's either/or--You can shame, or you can empathize. It's quite possible the culture has to do both, and that individuals can be effective on both ends, depending on their relationships with those they shame or engage.

After all, if I hold racist beliefs, and see that the larger culture is moving more in the direction of shaming racism, mightn't that make me, at least subconsciously, more receptive to ways I can prevent myself from being on the outside of the shame bubble? And therefore more receptive when an empathetic person does have the energy to engage with me?

I have trouble believing that gay marriage would have so suddenly become acceptable to the majority of Americans without the public outrage over homophobic actions. Maybe I'm confusing what this article calls "shaming" with simple activism and visibility-raising. But I rarely see anyone talking about combined approaches. Just, "That one doesn't work." Maybe that kind of claim arises because the social science researchers who study this stuff set up very tightly controlled comparisons? If so I wish those reporting on the research would make that clear.
posted by helpthebear at 9:40 AM on November 17, 2016 [11 favorites]


After all, if I hold racist beliefs, and see that the larger culture is moving more in the direction of shaming racism, mightn't that make me, at least subconsciously, more receptive to ways I can prevent myself from being on the outside of the shame bubble? And therefore more receptive when an empathetic person does have the energy to engage with me?

Problem is that we've just seen that one of the ways people do this is by outwardly smiling and nodding and then secretly feeling threatened for having racist views.
posted by dinty_moore at 10:20 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was going to go with all of those reports of secret persecuted Trump supporters we all heard and laughed at before the election.

It doesn't mean that these people actually have a good reason to feel threatened. Nothing is really threatening them. But it has shown that shaming people doesn't make them less racist, it just maybe means that they'll be more likely to hide their racism. And honestly? That's better than nothing, because it does change their actions for a while. I'd rather have people feel like they need to hide their bigotry around people who will be hurt by it. But it's not as effective as changing their minds.
posted by dinty_moore at 10:29 AM on November 17, 2016


photoslob: "Here's the most effective way of dissuading them of their vocal racism and sexism - include women and POC in the group. It doesn't change the fact that they're racist and sexist but the shit talk sure does stop when they're in the company of a woman or an african american. Cowards."

This has not been my experience.

Many of my White male co-workers have cheerfully made sexist, ableist, LGBT-phobic or racist "jokes" and comments in the presence of co-workers who are women, non-White, disabled or LGBT. Objections have been treated as over-sensitivity, if not an outright invitation to double-down and say even more offensive things.

Repeating themes: complaints about their wives extrapolated onto the entire female gender, bisexuals are slutty and prone to cheating, women are bad at math, the real reason there aren't more women in STEM fields is they just aren't interested, the reason there are more women & non-Whites at [big-city-office] than [small-city-office] is that government salaries don't go as far in [big-city] and White men were talented enough to get more lucrative jobs, it's racist for immigrants to live in ethnic enclaves or do things to help each other, sexism is over, White men are the real oppressed social group.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 10:30 AM on November 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


Many of my White male co-workers have cheerfully made sexist, ableist, LGBT-phobic or racist "jokes" and comments in the presence of co-workers who are women, non-White, disabled or LGBT.

Is there an HR dept you can take a discrimination complaint to in your work place? I've spent my professional life around journalists working in newsrooms so I've not come into contact with this sort of shit in the workplace and it boggles my mind when I hear about it.
posted by photoslob at 10:39 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm not doubting you, just asking for super clear thinking around an incredibly challenging set of issues:

What would be truly interesting would be a comparison of your same co-workers with and without the diverse set of coworkers. Would it actually be _worse_ if they were in a homogenous-like-them environment?

It's the multiverse approach.
posted by amtho at 10:49 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


"Is there an HR dept you can take a discrimination complaint to in your work place?"

The existence of an HR department in those workplaces mostly gave me the opportunity to nuke my internship/chance at contract-renewal/job from orbit in a fun and exciting fashion if I so chose. It's an industry-wide problem. See: all the Metafilter posts about Women in STEM, and tech bros. I push back when and how I can.

"Would it actually be _worse_ if they were in a homogenous-like-them environment?"

Obviously we can never know for sure, but given their willingness to say things in front of me about demographics that I am not a member of (or they didn't know I was a member of) I suspect not much would change. If anything it might be (outwardly) toned down in the absence of anyone making (even mild) objections for them to react against.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 12:16 PM on November 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


Nobody is really a villain in their own story, it seems to be a normal reaction to not believe when someone tells you that you are X if you don't think you are X. Addressing the idea and not the person gives better results as the other person doesn't immediately go on the defensive. If you feel that you're being attacked and misunderstood, you probably won't really be in a state of mind to admit that yeah, maybe what you just said WAS insensitive and tactless. I always call out bad behavior, because remaining silent would basically be like I'm condoning it... but I do see a lot of people not addressing the behavior and just going straight to saying that the person as a whole is bad/wrong. And while that may be cathartic, it probably just cements their position more. "This person keeps telling me that I'm a racist, when I know I'm not, therefore they are just too sensitive and high strung like all liberals".
posted by Hazelsmrf at 1:41 PM on November 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm surrounded by privileged white men who have been openly racist and sexist in front of me. I've made my feelings known and they ignore me because they think I'm one of them and even though I'm visibly disgusted I obviously just can't take a joke. Here's the most effective way of dissuading them of their vocal racism and sexism - include women and POC in the group. It doesn't change the fact that they're racist and sexist but the shit talk sure does stop when they're in the company of a woman or an african american.

What? If they're ignoring you when you make your feelings known - if they dismiss it as "can't take a joke" - you're exactly who this article is for. It's a how-to guide to more effectively get groups like that to say and think those things less, which seems to be your goal.

Which, I recognize, is asking you to do some pretty tough work. But at least you are the one who gets to do that work, for once, instead of the women or POC having to do it all (which is a hell of a lot harder and more painful for them). And while these men may not be including women and POC in the group, I suspect women and POC are also actively avoiding the group and that sort of environment because it's a scary/insulting/unsafe place to be. It's not a problem that's going to fix itself.

Please do this work to reduce racial bias. Please. On behalf of everyone who won't be listened to or doesn't have the emotional energy to have these conversations yet again - please.
posted by R a c h e l at 2:05 PM on November 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


dr_dank "if you want to piss off a conservative, tell them a lie. If you want to piss off a liberal, tell them the truth"

Isn't that the other way around?

When told truths, Trump supporters get their panties in a bunch. Tell them lies and they'll lap it right up.

The lies that Trump and his ilk spew angers the reality based community, who have the patience and rational thought to analyze what a true fact means and many of its implications.
posted by porpoise at 2:35 PM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


He tries to complain about his circumstances. But his concerns are downplayed by a politician or racial justice activist, who instead points out that at least he’s doing better than black and brown folks if you look at broad socioeconomic measures.,,,this is how many white Americans feel, regardless of the facts.

God, I'm sick of these pieces. I am glad to hear polymodus say there are other theories of psychological social change, because what this one is goes by another name: coddling.

those conversations may have to be held more tactfully — positioning people into a more receptive position to hear what these problems are all about....“Democrats in particular need to go out of their way to reassure these groups that they are being respected, that they are being listened to,” Conner said.

I have a real problem with the idea that they're not doing that. Among the many failures of reporting on the issue won't someone think of the sensitive white people is the reality that, in the past forty years, one party has been working to raise minimum wages, create job training, preserve unions, create healthcare and Head Start programs, and all the other things that happen when you are, in fact, listening to the problems of marginalized people. And over and over, sad white voters sent the GOP to represent them, getting suckered in by their jobs-and-freedom line. Somebody for sure isn't being respected and listened to in this scenario, but I'm not sure it's ignorant white voters.

Virginia asks him again if he'd vote in favor of banning transgender discrimination. "In favor," he says.

So, this is an interesting phenomenon about the canvassing. I'm sure many of us have found that you can make personal inroads and find common ground with individuals when you exclude a number of important issues from the conversation. However, there is really no evidence yet that this tactic works - as in, does it change the way people vote? Or does it just become a way for a person to defuse a confrontation and get you off their porch? Because if this election taught us one thing, it's that people are weaselly enough to hide their real inclinations from canvassers, pollsters, and friends and family in the name of not being critically examined. The New York Times has covered the canvassing experiment a few times, noting that at best it shifts the attitudes of 1 in 10 voters (significant, not revolutionary) and that the effect hasn't yet been shown to persist beyond three weeks. Also: "the researchers, however, had no way to test whether those changed attitudes would translate into altered votes." Canvassing might work better on some more palatable issues than others: on abortion, "researchers found that the persuasion attempts had “zero effect."

What I take away in general is that some large proportion of people have very little in the way of independent thinking skills and are entirely swayed by the social surround. So great, we can manipulate that in this way, but we don't ultimately get thinking people. We just get people responding to a different set of influences. Their seeming conversion remains incomplete and inconsistent.

I think this is problematic and that we need more ideas.
posted by Miko at 8:12 PM on November 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


Unfortunately the paper that this article was based on has been retracted.

The reasons for retracting the paper are as follows: (i) Survey incentives were misrepresented. To encourage participation in the survey, respondents were claimed to have been given cash payments to enroll, to refer family and friends, and to complete multiple surveys. In correspondence received from Michael J. LaCour's attorney, he confirmed that no such payments were made. (ii) The statement on sponsorship was false. In the Report, LaCour acknowledged funding from the Williams Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund. Per correspondence from LaCour's attorney, this statement was not true.

In addition to these known problems, independent researchers have noted certain statistical irregularities in the responses (2). LaCour has not produced the original survey data from which someone else could independently confirm the validity of the reported findings. Michael J. LaCour does not agree to this Retraction.
posted by Tom-B at 3:30 AM on November 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


We've discussed the retraction Tom-B mentions before, here.
posted by nat at 4:42 AM on November 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


While that study was retracted, later research confirmed the effect.

Second article about that
posted by amtho at 6:11 AM on November 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


amtho, I think those 2 links go to the same article.

I am still skeptical: "The canvassing technique virtually erased the transgender prejudices of about one in 10 people, and the change lasted at least 3 months." But did it change how they voted? This needs to be demonstrated, and that has yet to happen. If one conversation can sway people for three months, we can't call that "permanent." Social norms are powerfully determinative. Against months more of immersion in a prejudiced family, workplace, friend group, how lasting is this effect, really?

On the one hand, this makes gut-level sense. Some people (1 in 10 apparently) can be swayed by a personal relationship with a real human being who expands their thinking on prejudice. I've often noted that people change their views on things like sexism and racism and genderism rapidly when a close friend or family member is affected. On the other hand, indications are that empathy alone is not going to work with 9 out of 10 people. This may be a strategy that helps make marginal gains against softly held prejudice, but something with more force is clearly needed to crack the 90% majority who are entrenched in prejudice. And though I recognize the electoral signficance of a 10% sway, I wonder about scaling this (how many such 15 minute conversations can any campaign conduct, how do you diagnose where to stop wasting time when you encounter someone in the 90% so you can spend more time with the 10, how do you train people to do this effectively at mass scale, etc.)
posted by Miko at 7:59 AM on November 18, 2016


It doesn't mean that these people actually have a good reason to feel threatened. Nothing is really threatening them. But it has shown that shaming people doesn't make them less racist, it just maybe means that they'll be more likely to hide their racism. And honestly? That's better than nothing, because it does change their actions for a while. I'd rather have people feel like they need to hide their bigotry around people who will be hurt by it. But it's not as effective as changing their minds.

But this is a key point: effective at what?

I compare this to gun safety arguments: it is technically true that guns don't kill people, people kill people. In an ideal world, our cultures would be such that ready access to guns would be irrelevant, people would just not act violently toward each other. This requires solving a lot of other, interconnected, very hard social problems, however: cultural misogyny and gender-based violence, issues that contribute to child abuse, general attitudes around militarism and nationalism, etc. Those are definitely important things to work on, entirely in their own rights as well as in relation to gun violence. But if we don't address gun violence itself directly and in the short term, people are going to keep dying from gun violence. I consider that a problem and a negative outcome. So even though gun safety regulations don't solve the very root causes of gun violence, I support them because they are effective in the short to medium term at preventing gun deaths.
posted by eviemath at 8:20 AM on November 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


But did it change how they voted?

We can't change the culture to something safe, happy, and tolerant by voting alone. People need to generally understand and agree on stuff. That kind of thing is prevented by people persuading other people, by whatever the prevalent culture in various pockets of the country is. In a small town in Georgia or North Carolina, a few people talking about something can have a real effect on events.

If one conversation can sway people for three months, we can't call that "permanent." Social norms are powerfully determinative. Against months more of immersion in a prejudiced family, workplace, friend group, how lasting is this effect, really?

Social norms start with a small number of people, who then persuade others, who eventually have a great enough number that "normal" is those people. They don't generally start with one person telling everyone else how bad they all are.

Yes, we're beyond the starting point now, but my point is that persuading 1 in 10 people is not nothing, especially given the difference between winning and losing in modern elections.

Also, talking to people is generally easy, inexpensive, and low-risk.
posted by amtho at 1:26 PM on November 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Nobody is really a villain in their own story, it seems to be a normal reaction to not believe when someone tells you that you are X if you don't think you are X. Addressing the idea and not the person gives better results as the other person doesn't immediately go on the defensive.

I've been told that if you are really blunt with people and tell them that they need to change their ways because they are hurting society and should really know better, they are way more likely to come to church.
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:58 PM on November 18, 2016


We can't change the culture to something safe, happy, and tolerant by voting alone

No, but the most significant changes to women's and civil rights happened via the legislative process - not directly via the electoral or social norms process. So it matters who we put into legislative roles and who appoints judges. If we depended on hearts and minds, we would not make gains as rapidly nor as securely. We need to use votes to lead the law.

I think this is nice but it has not been proven scaleable and if there is no appreciable long-term impact on law and politics, then it's just nice.
posted by Miko at 11:30 AM on November 19, 2016


The legislative process follows a lot of people's hearts and minds, and only then can legislation affect more people's hearts and minds. It's not either/or. You need both. You need all, really.

Votes lead the law, but people's beliefs lead to votes.

Think about how religions start, and the very real impact, good and bad, that religions have had.

This is essentially emotional labor that changes society, and it's not glamorous or exciting or fast -- definitely not fast -- and it won't suffice all by itself, but it's a critical part of the whole, arguably an early catalyst for lots of social changes. To dismiss it is naive.
posted by amtho at 11:55 AM on November 19, 2016


The legislative process follows a lot of people's hearts and minds

Mmm, in the Civil Rights movement it really worked the other way around, to name one significant example. Not that that movement is really over. But good thing we didn't wait for hearts and minds to come around, because I don't think we'd be able to pass the 1964 Civil Rights act now, or support voting rights (we don't), or desegregate public accommodations. Heck, even emancipation worked this way. Hearts and minds were not won. Had we waited for Southern bigots to come around to embracing their fellow man and admitting their wrongs, we'd still be waiting (ARE still waiting, in many cases) Or think about gay marriage: essentially, in almost all cases, a series of court victories. Sometimes a coup brought about through exchanges within political relationships at the level of elected representatives and judges is what gets it done. Don't pooh-pooh it.

Religions are an interesting example. Did some of them start as small social movements, for instance, Christianity? Yes. But how did they grow and maintain themselves? By seizing control of populations - parishes, towns, aristocracies - and raising everyone in an environment of religious control. This works even today - the major determinant of religious denomination is not how your hearts and minds were swayed, but what culture you were born into and your family participated in. About 2/3 of people raised in a religion stay in that religion. I was raised among Catholics, but had I been born elsewhere to other people I'd be Jewish, or Muslim. I went to school with Jews, atheists, evangelicals - all of whom had great things to say and some of whom were amazing people - but I didn't become any of those things. Those religions don't exist because someone swayed them - they exist because of mechanisms they built to perpetuate that religious structure.

Again, this is all philosophy. What I care about is efficacy. If a mix of strategies is most efficacious, great. If one or the other is more efficacious, great. I just don't like how every now and then, a facile social science theory pops up, gets widely embraced, and then sort of peters out because, after all, it doesn't really change the nature of the electorate. So I am not sure i want my campaign resources sunk into this strategy - it's slow, expensive, and hasn't been demonstrated fully efficacious. Once they have the data that shows it, then great, definitely. Until then, sure, let's watch with interest, learn whatever we can, but let's not pin all our hopes on this as the magic pill.
posted by Miko at 6:38 PM on November 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


Not _every_ heart and mind. _Some_ hearts and minds. The Civil Rights movement followed the hearts and minds of a lot of people, even some people in the south.

I think this seeming disagreement here is essentially a linguistic problem. I'll be more careful to say "some" in the future. I did not at all mean that every person has to be convinced of a thing before it can be legislated.

Legislation follows _some_ people being convinced. Many of those people won't have been born with their beliefs set; many will have been persuaded by experience or words that, for example, even if their parents treat some people as not being completely human, all people deserve the same rights.

Religions are an interesting example. Did some of them start as small social movements, for instance, Christianity? Yes. But how did they grow and maintain themselves? By seizing control of populations - parishes, towns, aristocracies - and raising everyone in an environment of religious control.

Of course the initial stages of Christianity weren't like this. Also, the reformation -- the rise in protestant churches in Europe -- wasn't by conquest, as I understand it. Martin Luther came up with some new ideas, persuaded some people, most of them were rather oppressed, but eventually the new beliefs became popular enough that they could no longer be suppressed. Later, yes, political imposition, but that was after a large number of people followed the new beliefs.

Contrast this with Akhenaten, the pharoah who tried to unilaterally impose monotheism on the people of Egypt.

Of course you're not talking about change imposed by one person on everyone else, either. It's becoming clearer to me that clarity on this is hard.


I just don't like how every now and then, a facile social science theory pops up, gets widely embraced, and then sort of peters out because, after all, it doesn't really change the nature of the electorate. So I am not sure i want my campaign resources sunk into this strategy - it's slow, expensive, and hasn't been demonstrated fully efficacious. Once they have the data that shows it, then great, definitely. Until then, sure, let's watch with interest, learn whatever we can, but let's not pin all our hopes on this as the magic pill.

Oh, I do agree. Really, any time someone says "this is the thing that will fix everything", I feel averse. Also, any time a large organization tries to do something, it ends up being somewhat alienating, just because of the number of steps between real feeling about something and some kind of communication about it.

I don't think this is the sort of thing that can be accomplished with advertising money or even papers and professionally-written articles. People just sort of have to start feeling it doing it on their own, or maybe forming mutual support groups and then doing it.

Perhaps the most a campaign, party, or even Kickstarter could do would be to create the conditions that would allow naturally passionate and evangelical people to accomplish more; maybe there's another way to make this work.
posted by amtho at 7:54 PM on November 19, 2016


Forgive me, but one other thing: gay marriage followed "Ellen", "Will and Grace", "Glee", "Project Runway", even "Too Close for Comfort", plus a lot of other encounters with gay people, that wouldn't have happened even 10 or 15 years earlier; none of those shows were imposed by legislation.
posted by amtho at 7:59 PM on November 19, 2016


Don't forget Queer Eye for the Straight Guy; the first episode I saw I said to my housemate "This will be the path to civil union" (that's what we were focused on at the time). Normalization. I agree it's powerful.

Legislation follows _some_ people being convinced.

I know I'm quibbling. But just a note, they weren't necessarily convinced of the rightness of these positions. They were often just convinced of its expedience for their own positions. JFK and Lyndon Johnson twisted a lot of arms to get the concessions they did - and it sometimes came down to "vote for this or don't get XYZ that you also need and want for your state" or "your bill" or "your budget." A lot of people voted for civil rights with their nose held. Pure arm-wrestle politics is often under-appreciated in these hearts-and-minds conceptions, but it has produced a lot of good.
posted by Miko at 9:02 PM on November 19, 2016


A lot of people voted for civil rights with their nose held.

Yes, but the politicians doing the arm-twisting were supported by a lot of voters who wanted the change, who were convinced of their rightness.
posted by amtho at 11:11 PM on November 19, 2016


Right. But probably not even a majority of American voters, just the bloc in the North that swayed their representation; and that bloc had origins more than a century old and had solidified in the Civil War and strengthened during the Great Migration/industrial age. Demographic shifts, and historical/cultural trends, played their parts every bit as much, or more, as hearts and minds. The 1964 Civil Rights Act was filibustered for two months by Southern senators and there was tremendous opposition to it. Hearts and minds were not much changed in the South during or before this process. The voting was monolithic against it.
posted by Miko at 6:39 AM on November 20, 2016




"Contrast this with Akhenaten, the pharoah who tried to unilaterally impose monotheism on the people..."

Not a great example as you neglect the antecedents to Mr. Suns decision to smash statues and relocate the capital which shortly fell and his son tried to revert back too, got erased from history for it and the force used to close temples came from Nubia, primarily.

Like Luther, Amenhotep 3 wanted to reform, deflate the power of Amuns priests, rather then destroy a system in place for many years.
posted by clavdivs at 6:47 AM on November 20, 2016


The Boll Weevils.

"During and after the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, conservative southern Democrats were part of the coalition generally in support of Roosevelt's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal economic policies, but were opposed to desegregation and the American civil rights movement. On several occasions between 1948 and 1968, prominent conservative Southern Democrats broke from the Democrats to run a third party campaign for President on a platform of states'""
posted by clavdivs at 6:54 AM on November 20, 2016


Miko and clavdivs, this is incredibly interesting! Thank you so much for engaging on this! I was beginning to worry that nobody would discuss actual strategy. You are awesome and I have learned from both of your comments.

I have to think about your points, especially the stuff about Akhenaten (I'm not really following you, clavdivs, but it's an interesting case -- I admit I only know the basic outlines).

I wonder if more persuasion on the Civil Rights front would lead to less racism now, though. Voting rights are important and fundamental, but they are not the end of the struggle.

Maybe another word than "persuasion" would be an improvement; persuasion makes me think of ad campaigns and debates, when there are more effective but more complicated ways of making this happen.
posted by amtho at 8:07 AM on November 20, 2016


I guess that's why I'm interested to know whether persuasion demonstrably works.

I was sitting in church this morning thinking about how few people I know who have actually switched views on anything from one polarity to another. I have examples, but not a tremendous number. I myself have only switched views on a couple of matters, transgender rights (I used to be pretty ignorant about this) and...wow, I think that's it. I mean, on some points I've become more nuanced or more or less radical, but I haven't totally migrated to the opposite camp. I can't even imagine what it would take.

People sometimes change beliefs after a trauma. Also, when they're vulnerable in one way or another. When you're young and anxious/don't fit in, you're vulnerable. I think of a friend in high school who sort of 'recruited' into a hippie evangelical Christian group. He changed his beliefs overnight, and kept it up for a couple years. But before very long he totally migrated back to his secular liberalism. When you've been through trauma, you're vulnerable. My dad went to Vietnam as an evangelical racist. He came back agnostic and anti-racist.

I have one relative who spent years in an oppressive marriage in a super-conservative Christian area. She dotted every I and crossed every T of what she was supposed to do and say politically and personally to maintain her Christian conservative bona fides. Finally when the husband turned out to be a cheater and left, she spent a lot of time in therapy, then on her own, and the next man she dated was an open-minded more liberal sort who took up arguments with her and got her into listening to NPR, and they eventually married. She really cares about people and the social justice aspects of her religion, and during the Bush years, when her friends were posting hateful and disgusting stuff, she started asking herself "does this glorify God?" And when the answer came back 'no,' she started changing. She changed churches. She's now really liberal and thinks for herself.

But look how much that took. 10+ years. A trauma, a disrupted family, years of therapy, a new partner, exposure to new information, more maturity and the confidence for increasingly independent thought. And she remains the exception. I also have many other relatives dug into this mindset, and nothing in their environment has introduced the cognitive dissonance that so helped this relative. And they don't challenge it from an internal place either. I think this latter group is far more common than the former. Change in worldview is deep change. I don't think it happens in a conversation on a porch. I don't think it happens in ten conversations on a porch. I don't think it happens in ten years of conversation on a porch. I think the mechanisms are much harder to turn than that. It's not impossible, but it's also not as easy as these study conclusions try to argue - and I just won't believe those conclusions until they can be shown to be true, rather than extrapolated. Because we have limited resources for change-making, and investing a lot in a marginally effective strategy is probably not as good a use of those resources as flanking the issue is - picking up totally disengaged voters, working with youth where perspectives are somewhat more malleable, radicalizing swayable moderates, etc.

Real-world experience indicates it's not that common for people to change deeply.
posted by Miko at 9:51 AM on November 20, 2016


Perhaps one component here is that there can be a middle ground between being confrontational in not supporting other people's bigotry, and not speaking up at all. Captain Awkward talks a lot about striking this balance.

In that middle ground lies opportunities for education. If only there were widespread institutions in every town where we could teach kids internet and offline media literacy skills, conflict resolution and bystander intervention skills, constructive communication skills, and expose them to lots of viewpoints and life stories that they might not otherwise encounter, that might be a proof of concept of the potential for a broad scale, society-wide educational campaign that would both facilitate and support the implementation of corresponding legislative change, or indicate some of the potential pitfalls to avoid....
posted by eviemath at 10:58 AM on November 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


If only there were widespread institutions in every town....

Like..schools?

Did I miss the sarcasm there?
posted by Miko at 7:32 PM on November 20, 2016


No; schools was exactly what I meant, Miko.
posted by eviemath at 10:06 AM on November 21, 2016


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