It's Time to Talk about Race at Work

CHAPTER 2You're Not Racist, but You Have Blind Spots

Did you know that babies have bias? Several studies show that babies as young as three months exhibit bias. Researchers have found that six- to eight-month-old infants are more inclined to learn information from an adult of his or her own race than from an adult of a different race. Babies of any age gaze longer and are more likely to follow visual cues of people of the same race. And babies associate positive music with people of the same race and sad music with people of different races.

How is this possible? How can babies be prejudiced? Where and how do they learn something so destructive at such a young age? The answer is that they don't learn it. And they're not prejudiced. They're biased.

Bias does not mean prejudice. Bias means preference. The Collins English Dictionary definition of bias is this: “Bias is a tendency to prefer one person or thing to another, and to favor that person or thing.” Babies who are just 90 days old cannot possibly be prejudiced, but they can show preference toward own-race faces over other-race faces. When it comes to learning (which is pretty much all that babies do, besides eating and sleeping), studies show that infants are more inclined to learn information from an adult of his or her own race than from an adult of a different race, especially when it comes to learning under uncertainty.

This observation is important to know and understand because it means that bias is in us. We are ...