Race, Culture and Bias
It seems that you can’t turn on the television without hearing another story about the death of a black man by the hands of a white police officer. The deaths of Michael Brown, Erick Garner and other black men by the hands of law enforcement have been the topic of many debates regarding race, poverty and police brutality. My own confusion and ignorance regarding identity, race and politics has impeded my ability to come to any sort of educated/informed stance on these issues. Recent findings from PunditFact, a site which generates scorecards that measure the validity of the statements made by hosts, political pundits and paid contributors of major network news stations, has found that 60 percent of the claims made by Fox news were false, and 46 percent of claims made by NBC and MSNBC were deemed false. Major news networks hold the power to perpetuate both simplistic and erroneous information, which inevitably distorts public perception. I have become weary of those who have reached definitive conclusions about these multilayered and sensitive topics.
The election of President Barak Obama has led some to believe that we are now living in a post racial-America. This widely held assumption is dangerous as it creates a barrier to conversation regarding race and racism. According to Pewresearch.org, the unemployment rate of blacks is twice that of whites and has been so for the past six decades. In a study conducted by the University of Chicago and MIT, 5,000 fictitious job applications were sent in response to 1,300 help-wanted advertisements. The fictitious resumes were identical with the exception of one stipulation; some of the names were Anglo sounding names like John, while others had African American sounding names like Jamal. The study found that even though both resumes contained identical qualifications, the ones who had Anglo sounding names were fifty percent more likely to get called back than their African American-sounding counterparts. This finding does not suggest that the employers who chose against the black-sounding applicants were consciously averse to the prospect of hiring black employees, but that their decisions may have been guided by an unconscious racial bias.
Racial bias does not necessarily equate to deep seeded racist beliefs. According to Howard J. Ross, author of Everyday Bias, humans are hardwired to be partial. Ross goes on to say that our ancestors’ survival often depended upon their ability to make quick assumptions about strangers who may have proved threatening. With this information in mind, we as a culture must acknowledge our individual capacity for bias, so that we can then thoroughly examine our unconscious biases and prejudices. The news stations from which we gather information aren’t exceptions to this tendency for bias. Art can be used as a supplement, which rectifies the inherent bias of the media and within ourselves. It is important that artists shine a light on these topics so that hopefully they may expand the perspectives of those who would otherwise be led astray by misguided messages.
Sources:
The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/
http://www.radiolab.org/story/91653-race/
