Death of George Floyd and Implicit Bias

As we are faced with the deep injustice brought to light through the murder of George Floyd and the responses to protests, we’ve been thinking about implicit bias and how our brains are wired in ways that can be deeply hurtful and even deadly.

Here’s a story that Desmond Tutu told Krista Tippett in March 2014:

“I went to Nigeria when I was working for the World Council of Churches, and I was due to fly to Jos. And so I go to Lagos airport and I get onto the plane and the two pilots in the cockpit are both black. And whee, I just grew inches. You know, it was fantastic because we had been told that blacks can’t do this.

And we have a smooth takeoff and then we hit the mother and father of turbulence. I mean, it was quite awful, scary. Do you know, I can’t believe it but the first thought that came to my mind was, “Hey, there’s no white men in that cockpit. Are those blacks going to be able to make it?” And of course, they obviously made it — here I am. But the thing is, I had not known that I was damaged to the extent of thinking that somehow actually what those white people who had kept drumming into us in South Africa about our being inferior, about our being incapable, it had lodged somewhere in me.”

We all have been damaged by culture and history and we need to realize this so that we can counter these powerful forces and demand justice.

Desmond Tutu also said, “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”

We need change at many levels, institutional, political and also personal. Even as we fight for greater change in our society, let us also look inside and make sure we know what our minds are doing when we are not paying attention.

Consider taking this implicit bias test .

We need to end this cycle of violence and lies. We cannot wait any longer.