Those of you who follow this blog know that I’ve been presentingphilosophical puzzles在过去的几个月里，人们把注意力从冠状病毒大流行上转移开。我打算下个月继续。But together with Laura Maguire, who edits this blog, I decided that I couldn’t just write a blog right now that ignores recent events in the US: namely, the brutalmurder of George Floydat the knee of Derek Chauvin, then a Minneapolis police officer, along with the subsequent and ongoing protests around the country.

Floyd was Black, and Chauvin isWhite. So this killing was all too reminiscent ofmanyother events that have happened where aWhite一名警察杀死了一名手无寸铁的黑人。我们现在正在进行一场全国性的反思，思考警察在当今社会中扮演的更广泛的角色，以及如何打击遍布各个阶层的种族主义。

So this blog is about the psychological mechanics of one kind of racism, which I’ll callnaïve racism. There are a great many varieties of racism. But it will be useful to focus on just one type for now. I use the term “naïve,” because in this type the person typically has no idea that their minds are operating in a racist fashion. (Note: this is not the same thing asimplicit bias，尽管它可以与它共存，并帮助塑造它。)

Let’s start with a basic example. Suppose someone steps on your toe—apparently deliberately. Which of the following do you conclude?

1. This is a mean person.

2. 这个人做了一件卑鄙的事。

Now suppose someone holds the door for you. Which of the following do you conclude?

3. 这是一个好人。

4. 这个人做了一件好事。

Notice that b. and d. particularize the episodes. Whereas a. and c. generalize.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with generalizingper se. Sometimes it’s okay, and sometimes it isn’t. We have to recognize patterns to get by in the world, and we wouldn’t be able to plan for the future without generalizing on things that have happened in the past. So presumably enough toe stepping or door openingshouldlead to a generalization. But how much is enough? What these examples show is that there is a fair bit of leeway to how we might be inclined to answer that.

And that leeway is an open door—psychologically speaking—for various biases to creep in without people even realizing it, including racial biases.

What a number of experiments in social psychology have shown, among other things, is that whether people generalize or particularize about another person’s behavior depends in part on whether that person is in their in-group or a member of an out-group (see the introduction tothis piecefor useful references). One important pattern is this (simplifying details): people gravitate to generalizing on a good behavior for members of their in-group, while they particularize the bad behaviors of in-group members; but they do the exact opposite for out-group members—particularizing the good behaviors and generalizing the bad behaviors.

This finding holds true for more than just racial in-groups and out-groups, but it certainly holds true for them as well. So if you’re White, for example, anotherWhiteperson’s stepping on your toe is more likely to get b. (one mean thing). But a Black person’s stepping on your toe is more likely to get a. (mean in general). Furthermore, you probably didn’t realize until now that your mind works this way. Most people don’t.

That example is fairly innocuous. But multiply it hundreds of millions of times over in many different contexts, keeping in mind that due to historical inequality and to having majority status,Whitepeople in the US hold most positions of power. AWhite三年级拼错了一个单词，在老师看来，他只是犯了一个错误;一个黑人三年级学生拼错了同一个单词，老师认为他拼写不好。AWhiteteenager breaks a school rule, and she made a mistake in the eyes of the principal; a Black teenager breaks the same rule, and she has “behavioral issues.” And so on up through all levels of society.

What is so vicious about this process is that the person who forms the racially biased judgmentsseems to themselvessimply to be making a judgment based on evidence. After all, the boy did misspell a word; the girl did break a rule. And hence the person who comes to form the biased judgments and subsequent decisions thinks of themselves as thinking and acting rationally rather than racially. Add to this the parallel bias that people are more likely also to judge entire out-groupsby their least well-behaved exemplars—again without realizing the distortion in their induction base—and it becomes less and less surprising that people make racially prejudiced judgments while thinking they’re just being rational: after all, the (few) examples they focus on support their case.

So what can we do to combat this?

也许从你自己开始。简而言之，不要成为naïve。再长一点:当你对其他种族的人做出负面判断时，要质疑这些判断。Do youreallyhave more than a smidge of evidence? Furthermore, if you are in a position of authority, take some time to examine your handling of similar cases that have arisen for people of different races. Are you really evenhanded? You’ll probably be surprised.

After that, try sharing this blog with your friends, most importantly yourWhitefriends—especially if they happen to be police officers.

Photo byMarkus SpiskeonUnsplash