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

Jennifer Eberhardt, a social psychology professor and researcher at Stanford University, opens by describing her experience speaking in front of 132 members of the Oakland Police Department. After completing a two-year study to investigate civil rights violations in the Oakland Police Department, Eberhardt sets out to explain to the crowd what she found: that implicit bias affects decisions, regardless of good intentions. As she is met with silence and deadpan stares from the audience of law enforcement officers, Eberhardt feels a need to change tactics. She shares a personal story about a time her son spotted a Black man on a plane and told his mother that the man looked like his father. Eberhardt explains to the crowd that her husband is also Black, but aside from skin color, the man did not resemble her husband in any way.

As she turned to her own Black son to lecture him on how not all Black people look the same, her son confided, “I hope that man doesn’t rob the plane” (4). When Eberhardt prompted her son to explain why he said that, he was unable to demonstrate the origin of his thoughts.