The “racist” label, applied to any person, place or thing, cuts deep. But what if we understood the moniker not as a scarlet letter of disgrace, but a brain default that we all share? And, more important, a default that we can overcome?
How? The only way our brains know how: Recognize and respond. Every action may well be followed by a reaction, but it must be preceded by recognition. Recognition sparks self-awareness. Self-awareness ignites good leadership.
To wit, there are two primary reasons my brain defaults to racist thinking. (For clarity, I’m invoking Ibram Kendi’s description that, “A racist idea is any idea that suggests that one racial group is inferior to — or superior to — another racial group in any way.”)
Reason No. 1: My life choices have been informed by a bounty of opportunities, experiences and privileges. Many I sought or earned, and many I did not. Some simply exist because I am white. For instance, not once has the color of my skin presented a potential barrier to a loan or job. Never has anyone asked what country I’m from or how I wear my hair. My skin color never warrants a second look.
Not having to weigh any one of those factors in the more than 2,000 choices I — and everyone — makes every waking hour impacts my deeds and decisions. As a result, the very neural pathways that make me me have formed largely without my conscious awareness of, let alone questioning, what it means to be white. I think therefore I am. And what I am is continuously shaped and reshaped by both my reflexive and reflectivethoughts and actions. These thoughts and actions create my brain’s default settings. Repetition strengthens them.
How do these same default settings lead to racist thinking? I feel better not having to be the spokesperson for every fair-skinned woman in the office; not having to mollify white colleagues who feel guilty about their own or others’ unintentional slights. In other words, I feel better off in my whiteness. In most dictionaries, “superior” is synonymous with “better.” Do these feelings make me racist? Not necessarily, but they root me in a racist system, and therefore I am capable of racist thoughts and ideas. These thoughts afford me the privilege of having privilege. To paraphrase Peggy McIntosh, noted author and white privilege theorist, I have accepted a career’s worth of promotions without worrying that peers suspect I got them because of my race.
Does this mean I’m a bad leader — or person? No, but it means I’m human. To be human is to be sentient but also capable of change. To change, however, I must first willingly recognize the ways in which my brain has been molded and influenced by my race.
Reason No. 2: Everything we perceive enters the brain as a sensation, keeping our brains constantly guessing using already existing contexts. Its emotion control center, the amygdala, receives these incoming sensations far beneath conscious awareness and dictates — multiple times per second — whether we have the luxury to pause and ponder, or should react and defend. The brain accomplishes this feat, in part, by recognizing (or not) the familiar. Our brains crave patterns and predictability like our bodies crave food.
Myriad studies have substantiated a stronger amygdala (i.e., emotional) response when white people are shown pictures of Black faces. This automatic vigilance response kicks in whenever we perceive the unfamiliar. Since all human beings divide our world into ingroups and outgroups, the same skin color offers the kind of quick and easy shortcut to familiarity that the brain gloms onto for assurance, especially if stress or uncertainty weighs on our coping mechanisms. This study of ingroup and outgroup bias earned Daniel Kahneman a Nobel Prize for the research he conducted with his colleague, Amos Tversky.
Let’s say two resumes cross my desk. One belongs to Sandy, a white woman referred by a trusted colleague, and the other belongs to a Black man, Lee, from a different industry. My brain will likely try to convince me to focus on the more familiar person. The person who “feels” right. The rationale of “fit” might even spring to mind. Is this racist? If I am convincing myself that someone is “better” than someone else without the proper due diligence — then I suggest it is racist. Can I do something about this potentially racist notion? Absolutely. But first, I must recognize my brain’s default settings at work. Only then can I respond most effectively.
The wonderful thing about my racist brain is that I am its boss. I possess the power to recognize when my default settings might be leading me astray, and to respond accordingly. As Kendi says, racist labels are not “permanent tattoos”: “No one becomes a racist or antiracist. We can only strive to be one or the other.”
So, even if my brain tries to convince me that Sandy is a better “fit” for the job, I can counteract these protective measures. I can make sure that she truly meets an objective set of job criteria. I can dig more deeply into Lee’s previous experience to ascertain whether he could be more of an asset to the organization.
The same study that found increased amygdala response among white people when shown pictures of Black faces showed no amygdala increase (i.e., more objectivity) when subjects were asked whether those same Black faces liked vegetables.
A simple, practical question about vegetables released the subjects’ perceptions from the clutches of the emotion-centered amygdala and steered them to the prefrontal cortex, its more reason-centric neighbor. Now, apply this finding to the two job candidates, Sandy and Lee, by substituting a sense about their “fit” for whether each candidate likes vegetables. It may sound simplistic, but this small shift pumps the brain’s braking system just enough to disengage any default settings. For example, asking myself to list specific ways Sandy really is more qualified than Lee may be all it takes to check potentially racist thinking. Job criteria become the vegetables that nurture anti-racist thinking.
Do I want to be racist? Of course not. Will my brain continue to push me in certain directions by favoring its default settings? Yes, our fundamentally lazy brains are bent on preserving energy by seeking the path of least resistance. Good leaders recognize this tendency. They respond accordingly. They choose to overcome.
