Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do

by Jennifer L. Eberhardt

When it comes to everyday practices that teachers are encouraged to try in school settings to address racial issues, empathy, wise feedback, affirmation, and high-quality contact tend to get short shrift. Instead, one of the most common practices schools foster is the strategy of color blindness. Try not to notice color. Try not to think about color. If you don’t allow yourself to think about race, you can never be biased. That may sound like a fine ideal, but it’s unsupported by science and difficult to accomplish. Our brains, our culture, our instincts, all lead us to use color as a sorting tool. And yet the color-blind message is so esteemed in American society that even our children pick up the idea that noticing skin color is rude. By the age of ten, children tend to refrain from discussing race, even in