Thursday, December 18, 2014

RACE & JUSTICE - Deeply Rooted Biases and Law Enforcement

"Oakland tries to address how deeply rooted biases affect law enforcement" PBS NewsHour 12/16/2014

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now, race and justice in America.

Tonight, we look at efforts in Oakland, California, to address bias where it exists in law enforcement.

Special correspondent Jackie Judd has the story.

PROTESTER:  If I can’t breathe!

PROTESTERS:  You can’t breathe!

JACKIE JUDD (NewsHour):  The racial turmoil in the U.S. stemming from encounters between police and black men strikes a chord with Jennifer Eberhardt.  The social psychologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, has spent her career exploring racial bias and how that plays out in the criminal justice system.

Still, it came as a shock to her how embedded biases can be, biases we’re not even aware of.

JENNIFER EBERHARDT, Stanford University:  I’m on an airplane with my son.  And he looks up and he sees a black man, and he says, “Hey, that guy looks like daddy.”

And I look at the guy, he doesn’t look anything like my husband, and I notice he’s the only black guy on the plane.  And he says, “I hope he doesn’t rob the plane.”

And I said, “Well, why would you say that?”

And he looked at me and he said, “I don’t know why I said that.”

And so we’re living with such severe racial stratification that even a 5-year-old can tell us what’s supposed to happen next.

No comments: