Are We a Racist Society? The Majority of Us Say No – But Science Begs to Differ

The debate around racism is confusing, “it’s hard to know what to believe…it’s hard to know which sources are reporting facts and which are just spouting opinions.” We have “arguments in abundance,” but what the debate ignores is that “there are decades worth of clear, factual, rigorous, quantitative scientific research out there that reveals empirical truths about racism: from its effects on friendships, relationships, healthcare and the criminal justice system to the financial cost of selling items online while Black.” If we are to acknowledge this scientific consensus, we have to drop narratives of ‘unconscious bias’ that merely “protect our own perceptions of innocence, reducing our concerns about the bias we claim to be addressing and ensuring that nobody is ever held accountable for it,” and leave behind “silly” beliefs in the possibility of ‘colour-blindness’, because “a ‘more colour-blind society’ is, scientifically, a more racist one.”