Do Americans Have a Moral Responsibility to Resolve Racial Inequalities?

Thank you for tuning in to Healing Race. In this video, Todd and I discussed the role that racial biases made by everyday Americans can play in the differences in opportunity and support that white and black Americans experience across their lifetimes. Do white Americans have a moral responsibility to work against the ways that society benefits them on average relative to black Americans? And does not doing so reflect an inner belief among whites that they deserve those benefits more than blacks, Or perhaps at least make them active supporters of racial inequalities? Let's get to that conversation now. Enjoy. Did you know there's a con so and I hate to say black people forgive me, but so some of us have very sort of ethnic sounding names. And I remember when I first started sort of like coming up in corporate America and various companies, and I was talking I would talk to black people. I'm like, wait a minute. Because you'd see their name in writing and it's different than what they go by. And I'm like, wait a minute. Like, I'm like, girl, what is your real name? And the person I'm like, you Anglicanized your name so as to be more racially ambiguous. Right? Because you know that either that HR manager or whomever in the company, if they saw your full government name, which would be more ethnic or sounding, would have a bias of some sort of bias and exercise that. Yeah. No? Yeah. There's been studies on Who don't even use their real names. They go by I did my own names. I did my own study, in in political psychology. And what I did is I painted an individual who had come on bad times for various reasons. Right? So I said they well, not for various reasons, in various ways. I said this person lost their job, and now they don't have enough money to, you know, afford food on a daily basis. Okay. Imagine now that they can afford food, but they can't afford housing of some of some kind. Okay. Now imagine that they did get housed, but they don't have access to the education they need to, you know, do well economically. Right? So I kept changing. And after each one of those, I asked, to what extent does do the people of our local community, of our country, of the world. Right? So I was looking at different, you know, kinds of neighborhoods or kinds of communities. To what extent do the people of our community have a moral obligation to ensure that people like this person have enough food to eat, that people like this. Here's what I did in the study. In one half of the people in the study, the person's name was named Jamal. And half of the and half of half of the people who did the study, the name was Jake. Okay. Why did I choose those names? Because I looked up uniqueness of name. Uniqueness of name means that a name is highly used in one race and very rarely used in another race. Yeah. Andre. Mhmm. How many black Andres do I know? Like, a million of them. Yeah. I know some white Andres. But, yeah, I don't know the unique non-Who aren't French. White Andres who are from the United States. Yeah. Yeah. I actually had a friend who was Andres. But, anyways, that's only one person. I hear you. I don't know how unique the name Andres, but I do know black well, I'm telling you, black communities, it's a ubiquitous name. Yeah. So I do know Jamal. That's why I picked it, and I do know Jake. And they're highly unique names to black and white. Yes. You're right. Listen. On average, the effect wasn't like so on a scale from 1 to 7. Right? So, you know, there's 6 jumps you can make. Right? Strongly disagree to strongly agree Mhmm. That yes, we have a moral responsibility. Mhmm. I don't remember the exact on average effect. Again, it wasn't, like, hugely strong, but it was significant in statistics. I have one comment for you. Come to the south. Just trust me. You'll get some strong coming to the south. Shit. Yeah. You'll Jamal, he's lazy. Jake, well, he just needs a break. Yeah. So there could be variation across regions. There are very certainly variations across individuals. But listen. Just the fact that there was an on average effect that I think you said I think you said something about, you were talking about you worried about career being stymied. We were talking about physical harm, and I asked you in in other ways, does this impact you? And you said career was a big one. And you said in telling the story, you said, let's just say that, you know, a manager just has a slight preference for someone who's white or thinks that someone's white is slightly less deserving. Right? And your point there was those slight effects, right? Slight influences can make a big impact on someone who's on the other end of that decision. Right? All other things being equal. And so, yes, I did find that Jake was slightly more that people like Jake were slightly more deserving of the community taking care of them in these ways. But there was an effect. Right? So I recognize the ways in which these biases make a difference in decisions. And there's plenty of other studies on callbacks to resumes being sent out to, you know, on interviews, on loans being given and or VC funding? You know? So there if we if we see it, I don't know what the studies are on the micro level for VC funding, you know, on individual decisions. But if these are happening in these ways that have been studied, we would be naive to think that they're not happening in other places for others. Hopefully naive. Yeah. So, I can recognize that these preferences exist My talk. That they have influence, that people with influence, can be affected. These are average effects, which means for some people, they don't affect them. And for some people, like you just said, for some people, they may be stronger effects. Right? So I agree to all of all of those things. I just think that it those things don't necessarily equate. I understand when you say, but in their aggregate, they have these large impacts and that feels deliberate. I can understand how that would feel deliberate. I also think that you can tell the same story with these unconscious effects. And does that mean I don't think people have responsibility to realize the ways that bias is affecting their of course, they should. Right? Do I not think that people are making decisions and therefore through their decisions perpetuating inequalities? Of course, I do. I just don't know the extent to which this is based on some idea in their minds that that whites, have a right to black lives, and have ownership of those things. They might come out They always win out. But they don't need to. Right? They don't need to have the psychology for them to for them to win out is what I'm trying to say. They can still win out. All these little decisions can have a profound impact, and they could still be unconscious. I could carry with me unconscious bias about who is, And I guess that's kind of my point. So whether they whether they feel they whether so remember, you know, great granddaddy white dude. Great granddaddy white dude set it up so that if you are deliberately feeling like you have the right to black lives or you deliver you don't necessarily, you still went out in the end. So great granddaddy white dude said that he said now he fought this out. And yeah. Yeah. So there were people who advocated for parts of our political system that would maintain, at that time, slavery. Yeah. And there are ways in which our political system gives influence to certain regions of the country, to certain types of states, to smaller states just as much, you know, proportionally. Yeah. I mean, there are just all sorts of ways that power was set up back in those times that make it really hard to change things. Originalist. I follow but at that time at that time, not everyone owned slaves. Right? Did everyone did everyone benefit in some way from ownership? So not everyone has to do something and even with back to circle back to about an hour ago when your point with respect to, to prevalence. Right? Sweetie, you're not you don't have to be prevalent or everywhere. You just need to be prevalent among the right people. Mhmm. And as long as you're prevalent among the right people, you can have a gangbuster influence. Right? You know? And I totally agree with that. That is the reason. I'm just saying that I think where I think where you and I are different is that I'm saying this has been a concerted effort and you resist that language. I think it has been a concerted effort at certain points in time in our history, and I still think it's a concerted effort by some people at this point in time in history. So I agree with those things. I think that there are some people who passively benefit, and I think those are and even to your point, the fact that some people can have outside outsized influence, matters. It's the cobra. It's the cobra analogy. Right? Versus cobra. Right? Even if some people He's probably he thought of that great daddy white dude. He did. Great granddaddy white dude said no matter what, whether no matter what, I still want my group of people to be on the to be on the outsized influence cast. That that group of people who are setting the agency for others and not passively asking for agency from another group of people. Yeah. I think well, I think that might be giving them too much credit, but it they Oh, I know. I'm not gonna disagree. Let me Because let me tell you my white folks. Let me tell you, my story. White folks. I think he was con the granddaddy white dude, as you put it, was consciously I think he was consciously knowing what he was doing. I don't know if he knew what he was doing 200 years ahead of time. I think he wanted in that moment to make sure that he could maintain slavery. Right? Visualist. Right? And whether or not he thought about 200 years down the road whether it was gonna happen, he certainly knew he wanted it in the next 50 years, maybe 100 years. Okay. You took you took the number right out of my mind. Yes. And his was more like a 50-year time frame. Yeah. It's him and his progeny and maybe his great ranch. His grand enough people to buy into it. Now we're 200 years later. Well, let me can I just, you know, and I and I bring this up not for any reason? I mean, I think you know this about me, but I'm gonna say it anyways. I do not take offense to these things, but I but I only surface this to give you a sense of why I think looking at the structural issues that you just and even the systematic issues of bias, for me is the more comfortable not just more comfortable, but the more it is Palatable. It's just it based on my experience; it more reflects the way I think most people that I at least have come across think. I accept that. And this could be that the people that you've been around exhibit things that I don't that I have not seen. Right? And I can't know that. Right? So I can even accept the fact that I live in my own biased arena. In that clip, you mentioned as part of the psychology of ownership, you said your descendants. Right? Right? My descendants didn't own slaves. My descendants came like my grandparents on my mom's side and my great grandparents, maybe great grandparents on my dad's side on maybe my I forget his mom or dad's lineage. We don't we don't know the full history. What I what I took you as saying, and I'm maybe this is putting words in your mouth, because I know you know my history is that there were white descendants back even if I they were not my family that set up systems that enable me as someone who appears as white to benefit from the system that now exists. Big granddaddy. Great granddaddy. But that wasn't my great granddaddy. Right? It's all that I'm saying. It wasn't my great granddaddy. And so You would not genetically, but racially he was. Because you can present as white. You benefit from what great granddaddy set up. I okay. So I can accept that. I can accept that that I benefit at this point in time. Right? But even ethnically, right, that person was not related to me. No. And it only happened Although, I must say that there were Jews in the United States during slavery, and some of them were slave owners. Particularly in South Carolina. That that's not your that's not your lineage. No. I know that. Lineage. That could be the case. I yeah. Yeah. Yes. And so what I'm what I'm saying is that when leaps are made to the idea of descendants, right, I think it's putting people in the COBRA category that are not necessarily COBRA's. K. That's all that I'm saying. That sometimes in the conversation around psychology of ownership, and how broad it is or how broad it is felt among individuals, even, you know, I take your point. It comes off that way collectively at the macro level. But if that translates into well and I also therefore think that individuals must carry that around. I think it gets too broad to reflect in my experience people's actual psychology. And that there's other stories that could be told that might actually reflect their psychology. When I reacted to Black Panther, I wasn't reacting because I carried a psychology in me that says black people can't have these positions. What I was reacting to is, woah. It makes a difference for me to see someone in that way because I have not seen them in that way. That I actually that it was jarring to me, because it was so unfamiliar. And That's still great granddaddy. That's still yeah. Because great granddaddy set up a system where you wouldn’t rarely have ever seen black heroes. So putting great granddaddy aside, for a moment, can you though recognize or do would you accept, I guess? Does it make sense to you that my reaction to that, doesn't necessarily reflect me thinking that that's the right state of being for the right set of conditions for our country? I mean, I can accept that only if you were to advocate for more heroes of color in general. Right? But if you just go, that means if you just passively accept, we have this one Black Panther movie, that doesn't change shit. So that means you that means you're now passively accepting that heroes should be presented by white people, and that's what should get, you know, pumped into movie theaters. Mhmm. Yeah. So And I guess my question to you is now that you have this awareness, what are you gonna do about it? Where do you spend your dollars? Spend your dollars on movies that have black heroes. Yeah. You wanna go to the movies? Gotta buy a ticket. Spend your money. Vote with your dollars. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a fair I think that's a fair, what is it? And that's why I've become skeptical of literally white people. Because I'm like, yeah. Uh-huh. It's all convenient for you to know. Oh, yes. And, you know, I agree with that. Okay. Now what? Yeah. What do you mean now? What? Well, now what? So, I mean, how are you and your light and your life gonna advocate for something that you when you clearly see could be a public good? Diversity and representation. Because, I mean, I'm black. I'm advocating all the time. You know? Mhmm. Yeah. So when and so the question of why people wouldn't do that, I think, is probably the crux of where we of where not we differ on what we would like to see, but where we differ on the reasoning why we don't see what we would like to see. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, gonna be I think the reason I think it's a difference, I think there is This is gonna be an excellent show. I here's the reason why I think they're, I think our psychological makeup and I I'm gonna say this with a preface. I know this is not how do I how do I say this? I know this is not this doesn't matter to you because it doesn't matter for the end the end goal. And you've always said, well, you know, at the end of the day, results are the results that they are regardless of the motivation. So I hear that. But in understanding kind of what motivates maybe people to not advocate or even at a lower level, just your own individual decisions, be conscious of your own individual decisions, Be conscious for, you know, as you said, you know, how are you what's influencing kind of what movies you go to see or what, businesses that you, you know, seek services from or who you vote for or all of those decisions that are in your purview that don't require you to go and protest, right, and advocate or send a petition letter. Right? But are just little decisions that you just do make throughout the day. So can't you make them differently? So, so even lowering the standards that you don't have to be an advocate, but you could just make decisions. And I think one is it just does not feel I mean; I said this before in a previous episode. I think people just don't it's for some people, they are living whatever lives they're living, and it doesn't show up as relevant to their life. And I've said that too in previous episodes. Yeah. And you have said that as well that you can Giving the soccer mom analogy. Yeah. Like, I'm just trying to get my kids to soccer now to solve racism. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a second reason too. It's this interesting quirk inside of our kind of moral machinery that we have inside that we are we are more opposed to doing a bad thing than we are opposed to not doing a good thing. So what do I mean by that? You an individual won't push someone into a river to drown. That would be a horrible thing to do. K? Right? But the moral responsibility lessens if you're walking by a river and someone is drowning, not of your not because of your action. Now I know that that seems equivalent to a lot of people just thinking it on about it on its face, but there is something in our psychology that gives us a greater moral motivation to not do bad things than to kind of flake on our responsibility to do good things. Now there's a certain portion of people that will jump in that river and save that person even if they're not the ones that push them in. But in terms of moral blame, we just assign less moral blame to not intervening on saving someone than we do to actually being the perpetrator of a of a crime. And so, I honestly wonder why if and that's almost why going the route of saying psychology of ownership, and kind of, deliberate choices, I could almost understand the desire to go there. Because if you are saying you're deliberately doing something, there's more feeling of moral blame there, and so maybe more desire. Well, there could be 2 desires. 1, a desire to do something about it or a desire to say, I'm just going to turn my head and not even listen to it because I don't want to get this moral blame, right? Which I do also think happens. Whereas if it's just this passive thing that you're just a part of perpetuating, there's not as much of a feeling of moral responsibility to do something about it. And so I can I crafted my words using that strategy that you just outlined? Yes. So I just I worry about the backlash to people who actually don't feel that moral sense of own that that psychology of ownership, even if you feel it drives home moral responsibility, which probably is the case, I also think there's a lot more kind of Well, if you if they wanna backlash well, if they wanna backlash, say, well, that's not my feeling, Then why don't you proactively support social justice in your own lives? Prove it. Yeah. Prove it. So, yeah, backlash all you want. But I'm telling you because I know people, and the reason there's a backlash because I struck the chord in your heart, in the human heart. And to some degree, you have to wonder, is that me? Mhmm. Don't worry. I've asked this out. I don't ask anyone. So hear me and hear me now. You and anyone else who watches this show. I don't ask any questions of anyone, white or black, that I have not asked of myself. Yeah. Including when I voted for that task. Yeah. So yeah. And I think you kind of taking that on head on was demonstrative. You know, you demonstrated that. I think the equivalent parallel would be how you would feel. Are there ways that your bias or your cautions or your hesitations around white people, are there ways that you think that might come out less consciously, right, that if I were to place if I were to place that as a conscious responsibility that you would feel, well, that doesn't reflect me. Like, I might make mistakes. I might have my biases that I carry around against white people, and they might come out in certain ways. But if you're gonna tell me that I consciously do that, that doesn't feel right in my heart. Let's say there's a black entrepreneur. Okay? And he's interviewing black and white or, you know, black and white potential partners in his business project. But he has this unconscious bias about white people and that they will, you know, will tend on average to get one over on him. Right? That there'll be some about you? Yes. Like, I know you can tell the people I said that I told them No. It will it'll come out it'll come out in the next in the next, episode. Right? And just imagine that that person and imagine they're not as aware because you were you were pretty aware in this scenario, but we could imagine someone who's black who isn't as aware. Not everyone's as aware of Andre. You are very reflective as a human being. And that has them, you know, preference. You know, black partners over white partners, even if there's a white partner who, you know, on all the other parameters would be the best partner, right, in in in the venture. And thereby perpetuating, you know, segregation in business. Right? You know and having us not see in the world as many kinds of interracial partnerships in business that could exist. Whatever the societal I see what you're driving at. But so in in this let's take this this this context. Yeah. So my first question is you have a black man helping a white person achieve in business. And I and I and I get the equality and, you know, sort of let's see and evaluate people on their merits, but they already have so many other supports. Right? So you're but you're doing a few things are happening in this in in your scenario. The first one is, yes, the guy could be operating from an unconscious bias, but that's not necessarily a bad thing because the person let's say the white candidate who's the business partner position is the forerunner, but then you think to yourself, they have so many other ways and supports to help make them successful where those who may not be the forerunner could just need your partnership and mentorship, and then they can shine. You know what I mean? So, like, I get it, but it's just that of my retort to all of that is that the influence and I know to individual white people, it's not gonna feel that way, but that's why I say look in the aggregate. When you look in the aggregate, there's just so many other pathways to support and success for them that, you know, you I would say operating from a bias and putting that on that person is that may not necessarily be a bad thing because look at what else exists in society for them. Yeah. I'm not I'm not suggesting that in the point of the question isn't to evaluate the overall the overall outcome of it. I hear you on it, and we can get to get to the policy relationship to that idea that if there is a little bit of bias that that gets thrown a black person's way versus a white person's way, like, in the in the macro, is that, like, a bad thing given the outcomes that that currently exist? I, yeah, I can understand that? I'm talking just specifically about the individual and the evaluation or judgment of the individual. And what I'm trying to say is in that scenario, regardless of what the outcomes wind up being and whether they're good or bad, the judgment upon them that because they're making a choice that has attached to it some bias that there's some sort of deliberate racial element to it, doesn't speak necessarily to the reality of what's happening psychologically in that in in that scenario. And so, yes, they're making a deliberate choice, this black entrepreneur. And, yes, it's racially tinged in terms of preference for whatever reasons, right, that it's tinged. And, yes, the outcome therefore is bias of some kind. But I don't see that black individual as making a deliberately racial choice, even though sometimes there are. In your case, you make choices, where you are being you are aware of what you've seen in your life and how you need to make choices based on racial dynamics. But there are people who make choices that are more unconscious than that. My response again, just because it's the most real response, I think, in our in our conversation, my response was very unconscious around my reaction to Black Panther. It was just super you know; it wasn't even something I expected. That black entrepreneur is executing, implementing bias in their choices in ways that might not be conscious and still might be having effects. And that that I think is the reason for me kinda harping on this on this difference, is because I don’t, I can see bias getting executed on both black and white sides. And I know you're gonna say that the effects are not equivalent, and I'm not even arguing whether the harms that could be committed by a black person being, you know, prejudiced, you know, you know, having, you know, these kind of unconscious biases versus white person at, you know, at the macro level, whether they're equivalent. But it's more so just the specific judgment that is being made. I think the judgment of, well, if you recognize that there's bias and that you in your own life express that bias that, like, if you recognize that, don't you think there's a moral responsibility to do something about it? Is this a judgment that makes sense to me. But the kind of assumption that there's some sort of deliberate idea that that white people deserve it, and black people don't. I think, but just might not reflect a white person's reality or this black entrepreneur's reality in reverse. That's more what I'm trying to get at. I hear you on is the end good for this black you know, is the outcome good for society with this black person? I mean, that's the whole that's the whole premise of seeking diversity in in in business workforces or affirmative action. It's what I see it as is there's not equal representation out there and there are biases that perpetuate that. And so we actually have to actively work against those biases, not to be racist to prefer to preference minorities. That's not the point of it, even though that's the way that it gets argued against. Right? Is that it's a racist policy. Mhmm. But I see it as saying we recognize there are all sorts of ways that bias plays into decision making and to neglect or overlook that is to be naive to things that we've seen in research art, you know, project after research project. And so if we're going to recognize that these unconscious things happen in lots of different ways and lots of different not everywhere but in lots of different ways and lots with lots of different people, then we need to have some way of acting against it to get to that point where we can have equal representation in all of the places of power, education, politically and otherwise. What's that? Beauty? All of them. Yeah. And that's why I don't I don't I don't really buy into people's I mean; I understand the feeling behind people pushing back against affirmative action policies. I understand the feeling. I understand that we want to be colorblind, you know, when That would be it. No. You no. Not being color blind. Every color is appreciated. Yeah. That's what I'm that's what we want. At least that's what I want. It's okay it's okay to have, you know, racial and ethnic differences physically and so forth, or even present different. Is this what I want the world is to get to a place that one is not any better than the other, and it's just different, not better. Yeah. Color impartiality is where you wanna get to. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a better way to put it because even amongst sort of like well, maybe this is a different but even colorism among black people where it's like, there's sometimes an ethos where the more light-skinned people are sort of maybe thought of as not as black by darker skinned people. And I remember 4th July was popping for me, I suppose. But I was like, look, I'm not I feel no ashamed about how I look. I don't look like my grandmother said. A child can take color from anyone in the family. Like and so this is just genetics. There was no, oh, lord, please make me light skinned. No. This is just not that I know of. It's just genetics. Right? And I shouldn't feel ashamed to have to approve or feel more blackness, black, this, this, that, and the other. I'm just so I always tell people, said, I'm just Andre. I am who I am, and that's it. Yeah. Yeah. I made you say again. Yeah. Yeah. I'm well, I'm thinking I well, it's because I largely come from the same place as you in terms of color impartiality. I've heard because not first of all, not every white person has alabaster skin. There are darker skin white people just show their own their own, racial heritage. Right? Yeah. Well, here's where I think the pushback around this kind of support for diversifying, like, for the motivation to diversify in corporate settings and again in all sorts of different settings is I think there's I think there's a segment of the white population who, as you have said previously, are not privileged, but may, in equal circumstances, get more supports as you put it. Right? Who I think in some ways feel like a minority in the country because they don’t, they don't connect with, let's say, more affluent white people. Experience. They've been largely excluded from the from the pipeline to the support. There you go. And so when they look at and I can understand this. I don't know how you feel about it. When they look at affirmative action programs that are solely based on race and not based on economic circumstance or region or whatever the other whatever the other attributes would be, they said I they, I think, in their mind say, well, why shouldn't I have, Like, it's not like I'm the like, our neighborhood, our community have been the ones benefiting by this. But if you're only gonna make it about race, then we're being excluded from this diversification. Right? Because it's diversifying economically or its diverse again, diversifying regionally is not diversifying racially. And we're getting along with these in the 2016 election. What's that? I get what you're saying, and I accept it. And I and I then I know that is a phenomenon. You saw it in the 2016 election, I feel. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that is a little bit of some of the pushback on the focus on race is that there's just a certain segment of people who don't feel included, in this recognition that they have not had structural circumstances that would provide them the support system. In a pipeline to the support. Because I get so support, I understand, is like a highway. Right? And so if you're not on the feeder road in the pipeline to get on the highway, then you're just gonna take the back streets and you may get there. You may not. Right? And I mean, you we know this. You saw you've seen this in university and interviews there when people are in the know about okay, so when you're interviewing at this company, make sure you get this person and ask this question and pose your question this way. Like, there's information. Information is power. It really is. I mean, it's the most important thing out there. Thank you for watching this episode of Healing Race and stay with us for a scene from our next video. If you wanna see more conversations like the one you just watched, please subscribe to our channel, share this video with friends and family, and like and comment on the video below. If you'd like to be a guest on one of our episodes and have an open real conversation about race, email us at guests at healingracehow.com. And if there are topics you think we should cover, we'd love to hear them. So please email your ideas to topicshealingraceshow.com. As always, thanks for your support. We look forward to continuing the conversation with you. Now, here's a scene from our next healing race. So you talked about the, you know, white Americans who might live in some community where there are very few supports, right? And so you're acknowledging a certain socioeconomic disadvantage. And I think the question might be in reverse, why do we focus on identity as the driving force of the need for help, as the impetus for the need for help rather than what we're trying to help, which is socioeconomic disadvantage. I'll have an answer to that question. That would include white people and people of all sorts of colors and backgrounds. If that's the one of the main kind of drivers or focus areas, why not just support why not just focus on that? To watch the rest of that episode, go ahead and click the video below me. To see a different compelling Healing Race episode, you can click the video below me. We look forward to seeing you in the next video.