On racism and race distinction

There's an interesting piece over at ESPN.com (every once in a while, they actually perform their journalistic duty well) that details an ongoing controversy surrounding a study that seemed to show that white referees in the NBA called fouls on black players more frequently than they did on white players. According to ESPN's Henry Abbott,

The study focused on implicit bias, a new discipline that had piqued interest in academia and beyond -- especially after it was featured prominently in Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink." Researchers in many fields were finding that well-meaning people nobody would describe as closed-minded exhibited certain biases when they were asked to judge things very quickly. This was true of race, height, gender and more. (For instance, most of us choose to follow tall leaders, given an option, even though almost none of us think that's smart, when we stop to think about it.) 

"I literally got the idea while reading 'Blink,'" explains Price. He was eager to discover if the implicit bias Gladwell described actually affected decisions in the real world, for instance in the workplace. Sports presented a special opportunity to learn a lot more, because referees make quick decisions -- the kinds that reveal implicit bias -- every night. 

"If I had as good a set of data on judicial sentencing, or hiring decisions, I would have gone and looked at those," says Price, who was then getting his Ph.D. at Cornell, and is now an assistant professor at Brigham Young. "In my mind, I don't have any issues with the NBA. I actually think they've achieved racial equality in so many dimensions. They just happen to be a lab setting in which I get quasi-random assignment, I get lots of interactions between a small number of actors. I get a perfect setting to look at racial bias. And in some ways, if it's happening on a court in front of thousands of people, then it's probably happening when you go to make purchasing decisions, or hiring decisions, or whatever decisions we can think of as more important." 

And sure enough, Price and Wolfers found evidence of implicit bias among NBA referees. They didn't find any big problem -- it was less racism than other researchers had found in other populations. But still, some.

The NBA (and Commissioner David Stern) responded immediately and forcefully, denouncing the findings of the study as a "flat-out wrong" and a "bum rap"--rational discourse and a give-and-take discussion was instantly thrown out the window. The underlying details and back-and-forth (as detailed by the ESPN article) are interesting enough, but I focus more on the rhetoric surrounding the study--and the implications of that rhetoric.

I've long been bothered by the fact that rational discourse around racial issues is difficult to engender, in large part because any attempt to suggest a distinction or difference among the races typically provokes cries of "racism!" in response, thus stunting any further discussion. An interesting analogy is the controversy surrounding former Harvard President Larry Summers, who was widely and loudly criticized (and ultimately forced to step down) for his mere suggestion that women might have different "innate abilities" in math and science than men. That he was vilified for making his statements at a conference intended to discuss just those sorts of issues shows just how far out of whack the discourse on topics of racism and sexism have gotten.

I think that if we are truly going to arrive at a "post-racial America" (probably a little quick on the call there, eh NPR?), we are going to first have to allow ourselves to distinguish between "racism" and "racial distinction" (or perhaps, "racialism"). In order to agree that all races are equal, we do not need to agree that all races are the same--they are not. Certainly there are genetic and cultural differences between black Americans, white Americans, Asian-Americans, Latin Americans, and so forth, and to try to ignore that fact simply hampers the discourse surrounding racial issues.

There are definitely lessons to be learned from the NBA study--perhaps it is the "implicit bias" that the researchers were searching for, perhaps there is simply a difference in the type or style of players that make it to the NBA from each race (yeah... there is), or maybe black players just move faster than the referees' eyes can keep up with, which causes them to whistle more fouls because they're not seeing things properly (I don't know man, I'm just throwing stuff out there, leave me alone). But as long as we insist on reflexively denouncing any suggestion of racial distinction as "racism", we won't actually learn any of those lessons or respond to them--it's impossible.

I think that's too bad. Differences among races and genders don't need to imply superiority or a racial hierarchy--on the contrary, recognizing that different groups of people have different strengths is at the core of the "specialization" dynamic that has spurred global economic growth over the last century. It reminds me of a great quotation that I came across recently from Ludwig von Mises:

"If I am of the opinion that it is inexpedient to assign to the government the task of operating railroads, hotels, or mines, I am not an ‘enemy of the state' any more than I can be called an enemy of sulphuric acid because I am of the opinion that, useful though it may be for many purposes, it is not suitable either for drinking or for washing one's hands."

It's well said, albeit with respect to a much different topic than racism. Just because I draw a distinction between sulphuric acid and hand lotion does not mean that I am making a statement as to the relative value of the two. I simply recognize that there are relevant differences, and that those differences must be respected and understood in order to enjoy the relative benefits. Using the two interchangeably--or pretending that doing so is logical--would be disastrous. We need to get past that point in our racial discourse, or else we will never make any progress.

[ESPN.com]