Recognizing Bias

In class on Tuesday, we talked about the whiteness problem and the Whiteness problem that exist in the field of philosophy.  The two seem to feed each other, with the universalization of a white perspective alienating non-white students of philosophy.  While, as Mills notes, things have begun to change over the past few decades, Dr. J mentioned that 87% of philosophers are white even today.  Given the argument that Mills presents, this is not shocking.  If a field refuses even to recognize its bias, a necessary step before anything can be done about that bias, then those who are not being considered would have an extremely difficult time.  Assuming universality means erasing or demoting to subpersonhood those whose experiences and questions fall outside the “view from nowhere.” 

The first step in finding a solution to the problem of Whiteness in philosophy is recognizing that it is a problem.  If philosophy is really about love of wisdom, then it would, hopefully, be extremely concerned with a severe flaw in its understanding of what it means to be a person and how people approach and understand the world.  Currently, however, Mills argues that while there is progress, things remain mostly the same. By presenting whiteness as the universal perspective, philosophy continues to conceal the fact that whiteness is a very particular perspective and to deny the oppressive implications of adopting that viewpoint as the norm.

Mill also writes about the difficulties of helping white students to understand what he’s saying about race and privilege.  It’s difficult to understand myself as privileged and worse, as someone perpetuating all kinds of isms through that privilege and through other biases, conscious and unconscious.  The other day I was reading an article on Jezebel called “If You’re Biased and You Know It, Clap Your Hands (and Then DoSomething About It).”  The author linked to Project Implicit, which is a series of tests provided by Harvard that give the participant a breakdown of his or her various biases.  The author discusses her own bias and how she worked to fix it.  Here’s an interesting snippet from the article about the process of discovering and fighting bias:

“Turns out that if people are faced more with counter-stereotype images and assumptions — "the opposite of the one the culture typically pushes us towards" — it can greatly affect their thinking. Asking people to think about the other person in a positive way doesn't work, but interventions that relied on giving counter examples ended up producing large shifts.

Banaji mentions how she built a screensaver that had counter-stereotype images in it — including a New Yorker cover with a construction worker woman in a hard hat breastfeeding her baby. The hope is that seeing enough images like this will make her more open, and that when a young woman comes into her office with a great idea, she'll be more inclined to not judge the woman for her youthful voice, dress, whatever, and instead be able to focus on the woman's ideas.”

I just signed up to start taking some of the tests.  The first one is a short game.  Anyway, I’m interested to see what y’all think of this method as one way of changing the way that we see each other.  It’s a person-by-person step rather than a systematic step.  Philosophy as a field can’t really take the bias test, and neither can our government.  Still, it's something.  

What other things can we do to make ourselves confront our biases (and then hopefully work to change them)?