Whiteliness and institutional racism: hiding behind (un)conscious bias

Abstract

‘Unconscious bias happens by our brains making incredibly quick judgements and assessments without us realising.   Biases are influenced by background, cultural environment and experiences and we may not be aware of these views and opinions, or of their full impact and implications. This article opposes this point of view by arguing that bias is not unconscious but is (un)conscious and linked to Charles Mills’ ‘Racial Contract’ and its ‘epistemologies of ignorance’. These epistemologies emerge from what the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) calls ‘our background, cultural environment and personal experience’. Asserting that racism stems from ‘unconscious bias’ diminishes white supremacy and maintains white innocence as a ‘will to forget’ institutional racism. In equality and diversity training ‘unconscious bias’ has become a performative act to move beyond racism through  training to participate in a constructed ‘post-racial’ reality. The article argues that through decolonizing ‘unconscious bias’, ‘white fragility’ and ‘self-forgiveness’ we can begin to see hidden institutional whiteliness at the base of (un)conscious bias.

Keywords:

• Unconscious bias
• epistemologies of ignorance
• decolonising
• ‘post-racial’
• racism
• white fragility