*Please click on the linked words as they present evidence in the form of studies and informative articles to back up my statements.
In the wake of worldwide protests against police brutality and in support of the BLM movement, combined with the wide coverage of overt and implicit racism in traditional and social media, we find ourselves having new and difficult conversations with family, friends, coworkers and random people in comment sections on the internet.
It is human nature to have ingrained points of view that are reinforcements of what we have heard or assume, but have not been looked up before we spout an opinion. I am by no means an expert on racism and I have a lot to learn — I have many ingrained points of view myself, it’s easy and requires minimal effort. So I’ve told myself that going by what I’ve been told won’t cut it in a world where we want to see results, and if we want to see results we have to understand the problem.
Systemic racism is so complex and pervasive that it is difficult to put in a nutshell or even find common ground. So many talking points and ingrained myths divert the discussion and turn it into a wild goose chase. But there has to be a better way, a kernel of truth where we all agree and make it a starting point. If we all agree on that kernel, the logical points made moving forward should, in the end, reveal whether systemic racism has been there the whole time (which it has). This of course is a completely theoretical approach (or wishful thinking, I still haven’t decided) but worth a shot.
This thought exercise started when, during a past discussion on the topic, someone made a statement to the effect of:
“If racism exists as you state then how do you explain successful black people? Rap stars, CEOs, making millions”.
I had already fielded questions and comments about black on black crime, why the looting and rioting (while not understanding its history), proper ways of protesting and many more standard talking points we are all too familiar with (and tired of), and I wasn’t getting through. So my answer was a quick analogy:
“Think of it this way” I said, “systemic racism isn’t a wall. It’s a strainer.”
And immediately after, I realized that for this comment to ring true and avoid being reductionist I had to flesh it out further and link it to that kernel we could all agree on. And so the Strainer Theory™ was born.
Bias Is Inescapable
Before we get into the thick of it, let’s explore our common ground — that “kernel of truth” I previously mentioned. I’ll use a universal concept we can all agree on and understand: bias. It is present in math/statistics, news, ice cream preferences, etc. and it is inherent to all humans and universally understood. The concept of human bias cannot be disputed, and therefore has become the foundation of the Strainer Theory. Once bias is understood, we can apply it to a population and understand its compound effect on race.
So what is bias?
Merriam-Webster defines bias as:
a: an inclination of temperament or outlook especially : a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment : PREJUDICE
b: an instance of such prejudice
c: BENT, TENDENCY
d(1): deviation of the expected value of a statistical estimate from the quantity it estimates
(2): systematic error introduced into sampling or testing by selecting or encouraging one outcome or answer over others
What better way to illustrate bias than with ice cream?! Imagine you are given a choice between vanilla and strawberry. Even though I’m more of a ‘cookies and creme’ kinda guy, when faced with the choice between vanilla and strawberry, I will almost always opt for strawberry. Why am I biased against vanilla, when it is just as good as strawberry? I have had VERY good vanilla ice cream in my lifetime but since I am a fan of strawberry flavored candy could mean strawberry is my automatic choice simply by association. Additionally, there are many other reasons that I may not realize influence my decision — for example the fact that vanilla is seen as plain or boring when describing things, I don’t want boring ice cream! Or the fact that I heard someone mention that artificial vanilla flavor comes from glands near a beaver’s anus puts a negative image in my mind (even if the ice cream is naturally made with vanilla beans). Anyone and everyone will have an innate preference, or bias toward a specific flavor. Some of these reasons are known, and a lot of them are subconscious — things we have read, heard or even incidents from our youth that turned us off the flavor — without knowing they influence our choices.
If we imagine our bias can be measured through some key questions (data scientists, let’s do this!) and the score is displayed on a bar on top of our heads, a sort of “bias meter,” you can tell how biased someone is against something.
In the wake of worldwide protests against police brutality and in support of the BLM movement, combined with the wide coverage of overt and implicit racism in traditional and social media, we find ourselves having new and difficult conversations with family, friends, coworkers and random people in comment sections on the internet.
It is human nature to have ingrained points of view that are reinforcements of what we have heard or assume, but have not been looked up before we spout an opinion. I am by no means an expert on racism and I have a lot to learn — I have many ingrained points of view myself, it’s easy and requires minimal effort. So I’ve told myself that going by what I’ve been told won’t cut it in a world where we want to see results, and if we want to see results we have to understand the problem.
Systemic racism is so complex and pervasive that it is difficult to put in a nutshell or even find common ground. So many talking points and ingrained myths divert the discussion and turn it into a wild goose chase. But there has to be a better way, a kernel of truth where we all agree and make it a starting point. If we all agree on that kernel, the logical points made moving forward should, in the end, reveal whether systemic racism has been there the whole time (which it has). This of course is a completely theoretical approach (or wishful thinking, I still haven’t decided) but worth a shot.
This thought exercise started when, during a past discussion on the topic, someone made a statement to the effect of:
“If racism exists as you state then how do you explain successful black people? Rap stars, CEOs, making millions”.
I had already fielded questions and comments about black on black crime, why the looting and rioting (while not understanding its history), proper ways of protesting and many more standard talking points we are all too familiar with (and tired of), and I wasn’t getting through. So my answer was a quick analogy:
“Think of it this way” I said, “systemic racism isn’t a wall. It’s a strainer.”
And immediately after, I realized that for this comment to ring true and avoid being reductionist I had to flesh it out further and link it to that kernel we could all agree on. And so the Strainer Theory™ was born.
Bias Is Inescapable
Before we get into the thick of it, let’s explore our common ground — that “kernel of truth” I previously mentioned. I’ll use a universal concept we can all agree on and understand: bias. It is present in math/statistics, news, ice cream preferences, etc. and it is inherent to all humans and universally understood. The concept of human bias cannot be disputed, and therefore has become the foundation of the Strainer Theory. Once bias is understood, we can apply it to a population and understand its compound effect on race.
So what is bias?
Merriam-Webster defines bias as:
a: an inclination of temperament or outlook especially : a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment : PREJUDICE
b: an instance of such prejudice
c: BENT, TENDENCY
d(1): deviation of the expected value of a statistical estimate from the quantity it estimates
(2): systematic error introduced into sampling or testing by selecting or encouraging one outcome or answer over others
What better way to illustrate bias than with ice cream?! Imagine you are given a choice between vanilla and strawberry. Even though I’m more of a ‘cookies and creme’ kinda guy, when faced with the choice between vanilla and strawberry, I will almost always opt for strawberry. Why am I biased against vanilla, when it is just as good as strawberry? I have had VERY good vanilla ice cream in my lifetime but since I am a fan of strawberry flavored candy could mean strawberry is my automatic choice simply by association. Additionally, there are many other reasons that I may not realize influence my decision — for example the fact that vanilla is seen as plain or boring when describing things, I don’t want boring ice cream! Or the fact that I heard someone mention that artificial vanilla flavor comes from glands near a beaver’s anus puts a negative image in my mind (even if the ice cream is naturally made with vanilla beans). Anyone and everyone will have an innate preference, or bias toward a specific flavor. Some of these reasons are known, and a lot of them are subconscious — things we have read, heard or even incidents from our youth that turned us off the flavor — without knowing they influence our choices.
If we imagine our bias can be measured through some key questions (data scientists, let’s do this!) and the score is displayed on a bar on top of our heads, a sort of “bias meter,” you can tell how biased someone is against something.
The Strainer Theory
The Strainer Theory attempts to explain the power of bias when we take a population into account. Lets take the ice cream example and ask some volunteers to lay on their backs holding hands and forming a ring as illustrated below. You will notice that the bias meters point towards the center. If we were to draw a line from one meter reading to another until we have joined everyone’s bias meter you will end up with a closed shape.
The Strainer Theory attempts to explain the power of bias when we take a population into account. Lets take the ice cream example and ask some volunteers to lay on their backs holding hands and forming a ring as illustrated below. You will notice that the bias meters point towards the center. If we were to draw a line from one meter reading to another until we have joined everyone’s bias meter you will end up with a closed shape.
Now imagine the shape is actually a hole. The size of the hole determines how accepting each team is of a flavor. For example, one ring of volunteers all love vanilla, so their bias AGAINST vanilla is zero. This yields the biggest hole possible. On the other hand, if a ring is comprised entirely of volunteers that hate vanilla, the bias against vanilla will be at its maximum, which means all meters are full, and the hole is closed up completely.
To see the effect of bias on the ice cream, we decide to drop a fixed number of ice cream tubs into the center of each team’s ring and measure how many tubs made it through the hole. Effectively, the size of the hole directly affects each flavor reaching their potential or ‘acceptance rate,’ with a 100% pass-through rate of tubs equating to full acceptance. The ‘fully closed’ team that hates vanilla does not let any vanilla tubs through since their hole is closed off, and the ‘fully open’ team lets them all through. If we grab a population and randomly assign them to rings it should resemble a strainer that has many holes of different sizes when you zoom out. By dropping tubs of ice cream into this strainer you will know the acceptance rate of each flavor for that population. A strainer that has a higher vanilla acceptance rate than a strawberry acceptance rate, on average prefers vanilla to strawberry. The strainer is a tool made up of everyone’s bias meters and tells us our preferences as a population.
The Strainer Theory and Racial Bias
By applying the concept of the strainer to race, we are able to determine the racial bias of a population. Instead of discriminating against a flavor of ice cream based on our personal bias, we are discriminating against POC based on our racial bias. To fully understand its implications we need to backtrack a little and re-frame the bias meter to reflect racial bias against POC.
The concept of race is introduced when white Europeans invade the Americas and use race as a basis to categorize humans in the land they wished to occupy and profit from. In other words, white colonizers invented the strainer to suppress American natives and slaves to maximize their control and profit of the land. In these times virtually everyone’s bias meter is at 100% for POC and Native Americans. If we fast forward to today, we can observe many remnants of the bias of those days entrenched in the strainer.
By applying the concept of the strainer to race, we are able to determine the racial bias of a population. Instead of discriminating against a flavor of ice cream based on our personal bias, we are discriminating against POC based on our racial bias. To fully understand its implications we need to backtrack a little and re-frame the bias meter to reflect racial bias against POC.
The concept of race is introduced when white Europeans invade the Americas and use race as a basis to categorize humans in the land they wished to occupy and profit from. In other words, white colonizers invented the strainer to suppress American natives and slaves to maximize their control and profit of the land. In these times virtually everyone’s bias meter is at 100% for POC and Native Americans. If we fast forward to today, we can observe many remnants of the bias of those days entrenched in the strainer.
What is fueling the bias meter when it comes to skin?
Our racial bias meter is affected by things we see, hear, read and personally experience. For example, we have all heard the stereotype about black people relying of welfare and only wanting a free ride. We know this to be completely false based on actual data, but people still propagate the stereotype (which results in policy led by predominantly white people). Another example could be someone that has very little interaction with POC and base their opinions (and bias meter) on what they see on TV and social media. Given that the media portrayals of black males is biased, it is safe to assume that many people viewing news, movies and regular programming will adopt this bias. We are only scratching the surface, and it is already clear that things we consider normal and harmless like random conversations, watching the news or a movie can constantly message a population that black males are poor, lazy, aggressive and most likely criminals.
We can conclude through the mentioned studies that today the bias of the population against POC is influencing decisions that affect POC everyday.
Our racial bias meter is affected by things we see, hear, read and personally experience. For example, we have all heard the stereotype about black people relying of welfare and only wanting a free ride. We know this to be completely false based on actual data, but people still propagate the stereotype (which results in policy led by predominantly white people). Another example could be someone that has very little interaction with POC and base their opinions (and bias meter) on what they see on TV and social media. Given that the media portrayals of black males is biased, it is safe to assume that many people viewing news, movies and regular programming will adopt this bias. We are only scratching the surface, and it is already clear that things we consider normal and harmless like random conversations, watching the news or a movie can constantly message a population that black males are poor, lazy, aggressive and most likely criminals.
We can conclude through the mentioned studies that today the bias of the population against POC is influencing decisions that affect POC everyday.
If we put the strainer to the test with hiring practices across a population of the United States between POC and white people, we will notice how the population is biased against POC when hiring equally qualified individuals based on the color of their skin. How do we know this? By applying the strainer to a 2003 study ‘Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?’ where resumes were sent to 1300 different job ads with the only difference being the name: some had white sounding names and others had black sounding names. If the strainer was made entirely of robots (we assume 0% bias) the amount of white name resumes and black name resumes getting through with call backs would be close to equal, but when put through the real people strainer, the result is that white name resumes receive 50% more call backs than the black name resumes, showing a clear bias to pick white names over black.
“The amount of discrimination is uniform across occupations and industries. Federal contractors and employers who list Equal Opportunity Employer’ in their ad discriminate as much as other employers.” from the study.
We have shown how the strainer negatively influences hiring decisions against POC. If the population in the strainer is willing to discriminate when hiring for jobs, we can easily extrapolate that to any situation where biased people receive applications for anything: a home mortgage application, a business loan, a promotion, ad infinitum. The effect is oppression towards POC over many aspects of normal, daily life. On a darker front, the oppression of the strainer on POC when we test for healthcare looks grim because people that don’t make it through the strainer could have life or death consequences, showing that oppression is not only about opportunity, education or wealth but about life itself in many situations. This is what systemic racism and oppression look like.
“It is the latest evidence that algorithms used by hospitals and physicians to guide the health care given to tens of millions of Americans are shot through with implicit racism that their creators are often unaware of, but which nevertheless often result in Black people receiving inferior care” from this source.
Due to continuous protests around the world and, consequently, widespread media coverage, one of the more salient instances of racial bias and the strainer effect involves our police forces. Thanks to countless video evidence, awareness of this bias is spreading but this is by no means a new phenomenon. Excessive use of police force and bias against POC has been studied and documented. For clarity, I am not claiming that all police officers are racist. I am stating that, just like the strainer has shown, most people have some level of bias against POC. People of all professions are represented in that population, including police officers. The fact that racial bias in the police force can result in unjustified jail time, injury or death, and has for decades, puts it at the forefront of the current discussions on racism.
“Blacks remain far more likely than whites to be arrested for selling drugs (3.6 times more likely) or possessing drugs (2.5 times more likely). […] Here’s the real shock: whites are actually more likely than blacks to sell drugs and about as likely to consume them.” from the Brookings Institute study.
“Black Americans are more than twice as likely to be unarmed when killed during encounters with police as white people” from the Guardian.
The Consequences
Through this exercise we have seen how today’s strainer, a metaphor for the the “system” run by a majority of white Americans, is oppressive towards POC. Yes, there have been improvements thanks to the hard work of activists, leaders and allies, but there is still a long way to go.
Since I am no expert in the matter, I will let the outcome of centuries of oppression at the hands of a majority white population speak for themselves:
Higher death rates
Income/wealth inequality
Less opportunities due to education
Higher incarceration rates
Trauma and more
and the list goes on…
What We Can Do
Simply being aware of the issue seems to lower our implicit racial bias (according to this study), so if we all go one step further to combat it with anti-racism we have a higher chance of creating equality and justice for all, and get closer to eliminating the racial strainer altogether.
Below is a very limited list of resources that others with a better understanding of the issue have compiled. My personal advice would be to continue learning about the history of this country (not the one taught in elementary school) and have a humble attitude: know that you don’t know, with the mindset to learn. I have barely touched the tip of the iceberg about racism in America myself, so I aim to take my own advice.
6 Ways Well-Intentioned People Whitesplain Racism (And Why They Need to Stop)
11-Step Guide to Understanding Race, Racism, and White Privilege
A detailed list of anti-racism resources
UNC — Anti racism resources
Smithsonian — 158 RESOURCES TO UNDERSTAND RACISM IN AMERICA
“The amount of discrimination is uniform across occupations and industries. Federal contractors and employers who list Equal Opportunity Employer’ in their ad discriminate as much as other employers.” from the study.
We have shown how the strainer negatively influences hiring decisions against POC. If the population in the strainer is willing to discriminate when hiring for jobs, we can easily extrapolate that to any situation where biased people receive applications for anything: a home mortgage application, a business loan, a promotion, ad infinitum. The effect is oppression towards POC over many aspects of normal, daily life. On a darker front, the oppression of the strainer on POC when we test for healthcare looks grim because people that don’t make it through the strainer could have life or death consequences, showing that oppression is not only about opportunity, education or wealth but about life itself in many situations. This is what systemic racism and oppression look like.
“It is the latest evidence that algorithms used by hospitals and physicians to guide the health care given to tens of millions of Americans are shot through with implicit racism that their creators are often unaware of, but which nevertheless often result in Black people receiving inferior care” from this source.
Due to continuous protests around the world and, consequently, widespread media coverage, one of the more salient instances of racial bias and the strainer effect involves our police forces. Thanks to countless video evidence, awareness of this bias is spreading but this is by no means a new phenomenon. Excessive use of police force and bias against POC has been studied and documented. For clarity, I am not claiming that all police officers are racist. I am stating that, just like the strainer has shown, most people have some level of bias against POC. People of all professions are represented in that population, including police officers. The fact that racial bias in the police force can result in unjustified jail time, injury or death, and has for decades, puts it at the forefront of the current discussions on racism.
“Blacks remain far more likely than whites to be arrested for selling drugs (3.6 times more likely) or possessing drugs (2.5 times more likely). […] Here’s the real shock: whites are actually more likely than blacks to sell drugs and about as likely to consume them.” from the Brookings Institute study.
“Black Americans are more than twice as likely to be unarmed when killed during encounters with police as white people” from the Guardian.
The Consequences
Through this exercise we have seen how today’s strainer, a metaphor for the the “system” run by a majority of white Americans, is oppressive towards POC. Yes, there have been improvements thanks to the hard work of activists, leaders and allies, but there is still a long way to go.
Since I am no expert in the matter, I will let the outcome of centuries of oppression at the hands of a majority white population speak for themselves:
Higher death rates
Income/wealth inequality
Less opportunities due to education
Higher incarceration rates
Trauma and more
and the list goes on…
What We Can Do
Simply being aware of the issue seems to lower our implicit racial bias (according to this study), so if we all go one step further to combat it with anti-racism we have a higher chance of creating equality and justice for all, and get closer to eliminating the racial strainer altogether.
Below is a very limited list of resources that others with a better understanding of the issue have compiled. My personal advice would be to continue learning about the history of this country (not the one taught in elementary school) and have a humble attitude: know that you don’t know, with the mindset to learn. I have barely touched the tip of the iceberg about racism in America myself, so I aim to take my own advice.
6 Ways Well-Intentioned People Whitesplain Racism (And Why They Need to Stop)
11-Step Guide to Understanding Race, Racism, and White Privilege
A detailed list of anti-racism resources
UNC — Anti racism resources
Smithsonian — 158 RESOURCES TO UNDERSTAND RACISM IN AMERICA