Whether we know it or not, our educational perceptions and decisions are shaped by “race”

Abstract

RACE IS A SENSITIVE SUBJECT to most people. Most people think that, because they do not intentionally judge people on their race, they never do. However, everyone has been socialized, in one way or another, to judge people based on race. Often, we do not realize how implicitly held attitudes about race shape the decisions we make. Accordingly, it is of great value to discuss how implicit biases about group membership undermines our judgment. Once we start to discuss these issues, we can begin to see why racial stigmas exist and what we can do as individuals and together as a society to break through this problem.Perception involves the identification and interpretation of sensory information. However, processing sensory input is influenced by our expectations, knowledge, experience, and subjectivity. This processing happens outside of conscious awareness. As an example, please look at Fig. 1, do you see a young or an old woman (36)? What you see depends on your perspective, on the way your motivations, desires, and fears shape the way you interpret the information, and clues presented in the picture (3,4,15,19,38). Some of the information or clues are familiar and support your motivations so you shape them into a context you want to see. Other information or clues are unfamiliar and fail to satisfy your motivations or desires, so you choose to ignore them (22). In this context, perspective and motivation are everything, especially when it comes to interpreting situations. This example also illustrates that our interpretation may be different from the interpretation of others, although all interpretations may be equally valid.This may be analogous to the way we respond to a referee's call against our team. In this situation, we are highly motivated to point out why the referee is wrong. We are prone to attack the referee and defend our team. However, a referee's call against our opponent is enthusiastically endorsed. The response is rooted in emotions like tribalism and defensiveness (12). Tribalism can override reason and morality. If you doubt that tribalism can override reason and morality, consider the denial of basic scientific truths such as evolution or climate change when they challenge tribal beliefs. Or consider the long record of Catholic Church authorities denying evidence of child abuse by a small number of priests (24, 30). It is not just sports, science, politics, or religion; we identify ourselves as

The racist “one drop rule” influencing science: it is time to stop teaching “race corrections” in medicine

“…Our main recommendation is to stop teaching "race corrections" in medicine because some African ancestry does not mean only African ancestry (25,47,48). In addition, our students should be taught to focus on biological factors, including muscle mass, diabetes, and high blood pressure, rather than superficial classifications around skin color and hair texture in determining appropriate GFR estimate.…”

Misunderstanding of race as biology has deep negative biological and social consequences

“…The presentation of race as inherent biological differences is polarizing because it strengthens existing racial biases (Condit et al., 2004 ) and creates confusion and misunderstandings. The misunderstanding of race as biology provides a rationale for dividing people, and treating black individuals as a distinctly different genetic group (Kaufman & Hall, 2003 ; Lujan & DiCarlo, 2018a ) and it supports our tribal bias (Johnson et al., 2017 ; Lujan & DiCarlo, 2018b ) for Black inferiority that is innately pathological. This is not new.…”

“…Similarly, a review of lecture slides at a major medical school demonstrated that race was almost always presented as a biological risk factor and framed racial health disparities as inherent biological differences (Tsai et al, 2016). A review of case studies from a medical school in the United States revealed a strong racial bias when describing the patient and pathology (Johnson et al, 2017).…”

“…Similarly, a review of lecture slides at a major medical school demonstrated that race was almost always presented as a biological risk factor and framed racial health disparities as inherent biological differences (Tsai et al., 2016 ). A review of case studies from a medical school in the United States revealed a strong racial bias when describing the patient and pathology (Johnson et al., 2017 ). Thus, reports suggest an implicit bias, discrimination and racism embedded in our medical education curricula (Ansell & McDonald, 2015 ) which may contribute to the misunderstanding of race as biology.…”

“…Misunderstanding of race as biology may be due, in part, to the observation that race is often operationalized as a biological concept in some medical school's teaching, and some existing educational materials may reinforce institutional racism within medical education (Johnson et al., 2017 ; Tsai et al., 2016 ). An analysis of a question bank for Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination revealed questions that contained racially biased information (Ripp & Braun, 2017 ).…”