Rehabilitating a Concept of Implicit Racial Bias

Even as Americans’ racial attitudes grow increasingly egalitarian, racial injustices persist. One recent attempt to address this attitude-act gap has been to posit the existence of implicit racial bias (IRB), that is, an attitude that operates outside conscious attentional focus and disposes individuals toward discriminatory behavior. The Race Implicit Association Test (RIAT) is most often used to measure IRB. Yet studies of the RIAT reveal that it is too inconsistent, too susceptible to irrelevant factors to gauge IRB. Situations attempt to salvage the notion of IRB by alleging that it is a feature of situations rather than persons. But this is question-begging. This presentation aims to preserve the concept of IRB by positing IRB as a local trait—that is, as a trait that activates in very particular contexts. This in-between position preserves the importance of both structural analyses of social ills and theologies that emphasize individual moral formation.