‘Unconscious bias’ is mask enabling racism-touting says Keon West on Polanski pod

Academic and author Professor Keon West is a social scientist and expert in the psychology of racism – and, he appeared on Green party leader Zack Polanski’s Bold Politics podcast to discuss the UK’s burgeoning racism problem.

Professor West was asked why the phrase “unconscious bias” has become so common.

West’s answer will challenge many. West told Polanski that the phrase is a way of spreading and universalising guilt and responsibility as a way of avoiding taking responsibility ourselves for our own attitudes. And he said that it is helping racists excuse their racism while simultaneously spouting and touting it:

It’s incredibly comfortable. In the UK it’s so hard to have a conversation about racism or sexism.

You won’t hear people say: I did that and that was a racist thing to do. You can go on TV and say you hate seeing a bunch of black and brown faces – like Reform UK’s Sarah Pochin – and say you cannot be racist, it must be a misunderstanding.

Similarly men will say all sorts of things but not say that was sexist.

Instead, West explained how added buffers make those making racist or sexist statements feel better:

I think that it is considered so impolite and so hurtful, to own up to that bias, that we sneak in a word in front of that, ‘unconscious’, and suddenly we don’t have to feel quite so bad. And everybody has it.That focus that makes us calmer about the bias, that’s really for the benefit of the people being biased. It’s not at all for the benefit of the people on the receiving end of the bias.

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