The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction

Part 1, Chapters 1-3

Part 2, Chapters 4-5

Part 3, Chapters 6-7

Part 4, Chapters 8-11

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 2, Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Builders See and Use Their Ordinary Privilege”

Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary: “Knowing It When You Don’t See It”

Part 2 centers on the theme of Debunking the Myth of Meritocracy and Combatting Privilege to Promote Social Justice. Chugh opens Chapter 4 with an anecdote about Kim Davis, a Black executive who attended a workshop for senior female executives. Most attendees were white. Kim approached three groups to introduce herself, but none acknowledged her presence. Chugh follows this anecdote with that of Joe Lentine, an Italian American man who ignored racial bias growing up in a white Detroit suburb. Joe became increasingly uncomfortable with his upbringing after befriending a Black fraternity brother, coming out as gay, and witnessing racism at General Motors (GM), where he was an executive. Joe left GM to work at his father’s dental insurance business, where most of his customers were minorities on Medicaid. As the company grew, Joe actively recruited workers who reflected the racial and ethnic makeup of his customers. He also began paying closer attention to the experiences of non-white people. To that end, he reprimanded a white employee who told a racist joke and asked her to speak to the Black coworker she offended. In short, Joe went from ignoring bias to taking an active stand against bias.

Studies show that most people miss what is directly in front of them when it differs from their expectations. Kim’s cohort did not notice her attempts to engage them, while Joe failed to notice pervasive racial bias. Chugh refers to the tendency not to see, seek, or use information that is readily available and relevant as “bounded awareness’. People fail to notice discrimination not just because of information overload, but also because of confirmation bias, that is, the tendency to find evidence that confirms one’s point of view.

Becoming a builder requires challenging pervasive worldviews, notably, the belief in meritocracy. People who are successful want to believe that they earned their successes. Confirmation bias predisposes them to seeing the system as fair, even with evidence to the contrary. Studies show that this belief directly impacts workers. In companies with merit-based compensation systems, for instance, women and people of color must earn higher performance scores to receive the same salary increases as white male colleagues (100).

Perceiving only what we expect to see creates an echo chamber. Social circles reinforce these echo chambers, which tend to be racially homogeneous. Consequently, white people are less likely to participate in conversations about race, as their social circles amplify and perpetuate their experiences within an unequal system that privileges them. Just as Kim was invisible to her white colleagues, many white people do not see systemic privilege, even when it is right in front of them. Understanding how different social categories, such as race, class, gender, and disability, intersect to create and perpetuate privilege and disadvantage is key to creating a more equitable society. This begins with breaking away from echo chambers to understand different perspectives. Participating in online discussions or entering spaces where people from marginalized groups speak freely is critical in this regard. Chugh reminds readers to be respectful in these spaces, to activate their growth mentality, to listen rather than take over conversations, to take note of judgmental thoughts, and to assume that most of what is being said is true. Being a builder requires making the invisible visible, including the perspectives of others.

Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary: “The Power of Ordinary Privilege”

Chapter 5 focuses on ordinary privilege, which she describes as the “part of our everyday identity we think least about, because we do not need to” (112). Ordinary privilege is usually hidden. It becomes visible to a person when they encounter someone who does not have their privilege. People without disabilities, for example, do not often think about what it is like to move through the world in a wheelchair unless they’re forced to acknowledge someone who does. Similarly, white people are less likely to think about their race than non-white people.

Ordinary privilege is a tailwind that takes many forms and is not easily given to those who lack it. It also grants influence. Studies show that women and non-white executives who promote diversity at work receive poorer evaluations than their non-diversity-promoting peers. By contrast, white male executives who promote diversity are rated no differently than those who do not promote diversity (110). Hiring practices follow comparable patterns. Similarly, Black people face headwinds when they do antiracism work, but white people do not. Ordinary privilege is also apparent online. Chugh describes an experiment carried out by political scientist Kevin Munger, who created a series of profiles with which to confront those using racial slurs and biased language on Twitter. In his experiment, Black profiles were less successful at affecting change in user behavior than white profiles regardless of status (number of followers), giving the white profiles more sway over strangers who see their tweets.

Ordinary privilege helps white people accumulate advantages. White men disproportionately hold positions of power. Their networks comprise largely other white men, who receive more informal support than Black and white women receive from their networks. Most white men do not notice that their networks are skewed, reiterating the invisibility of ordinary privilege. White men replicate systems through their networks and in-group-bias, or the tendency to be drawn to those who look like “us.” Despite capitalizing on this kind of implicit favoritism and network support, white men tend to attribute their success to hard work and oppose policies that might level the playing field.

Combatting ordinary bias requires redirecting headwinds and tailwinds. Expanding one’s networks to include those who are not like oneself is an important step, as is eschewing the notion of a “good fit” (code for “like“’) in hiring practices. Making people aware of their “blind spots” is also key. Those who have ordinary privilege must make diversity their issue, rather than relying on minorities, who wield less power, to do the work. Similarly, companies who strive to be more equitable must actively involve white male employees in their efforts, such as including them in diversity task forces and allyship training sessions. By using their ordinary privilege to fight headwinds, white men who believe in equality can move from being believers to builders.

Part 2, Chapters 4-5 Analysis

Part 2, “Builders See and Use Their Ordinary Privilege,” focuses on combatting privilege and debunking the myth of meritocracy—two central themes throughout Chugh’s book. Learning to push back against both privilege and the myth of meritocracy means paying attention to things that are often hidden. Chugh’s discussion highlights a key motif in her work: invisibility. Chapter 4 features two anecdotal examples, Kim, a Black executive who was ignored by her white cohort at a workshop, and Joe, a white gay man who was oblivious to various sorts of bias in his youth. Kim and Joe seem to have little in common, but their stories emphasize the same motif—invisibility. Kim was completely invisible to the white executives at the workshop. She approached three different groups and waited to be acknowledged, only to be ignored each time. As Chugh observes, some of the white women may have deliberately ignored Kim, but others may simply not have seen her, even though she was standing beside them. Kim was invisible to the latter group because her presence defied their expectations—she did not fit into their worldview. Similarly, Joe’s worldview was shaped by his upbringing in a predominantly white Detroit suburb, where racial biases abounded. His worldview began to change in college, after he befriended a Black fraternity brother, and it continued to evolve as he faced the truth about his sexuality during his years at GM. His experiences as an adult made him realize how oblivious he had been to racial bias in his youth. Just as Kim was invisible to the white executives, racial bias was invisible to Joe.

In a clear and concise manner, Chugh cites studies to support her observations about invisibility, interweaving them with the anecdotes to keep readers engaged as she did in the preceding section. The studies complement and amplify her discussion of Kim and Joe. For example, Chugh describes a teaching exercise borrowed from a study by psychologists Ulrich Neisser, Dan Simons, and Chris Chabris (94-95). Participants watch a video of people donning either white or black T-shirts passing a basketball and asked to keep track of how many times the players in white pass the ball. Participants are then asked if they noticed anything unusual in the video. Most say no. Upon watching a second time, however, participants notice a woman with an umbrella walking amid the players. The study demonstrates that most people miss seeing things that are right in front of them if they are not explicitly pointed out, just as the white executives missed seeing Kim at the workshop, and Joe missed seeing racial bias in his white Detroit suburb. Chugh layers a second study involving airport security to reinforce her argument. Participants who were told that a dangerous object would appear half the time had a 7% error rate. By contrast, participants who were told that a dangerous object would appear only 1% of the time had a 30% error rate (95). This study reveals that people do not see things when they don’t expect to see them, even when these things are directly in front of them.

Chugh revisits the headwind/tailwind metaphor in Chapter 5 to explain ordinary privilege (a tailwind). She provides examples of ordinary privilege to help readers understand the concept with real-life contexts. Straight people, for instance, are less likely to think about their sexual orientation than gay people, just as people who don’t use wheelchairs are less likely to think about wheelchair accessibility. Similarly, white people are not likely to think about race because race does not negatively impact their lives, in contrast to Black people. Chugh cites research to support this claim, notably returning to Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Tatum describes a classroom exercise asking students to complete the sentence, “I am…” using as many descriptors as they can in one minute. white students rarely mention their race, just as straight students rarely mention their sexual orientation. As Tatum notes, race and sexual orientation are “taken for granted by them because it is taken for granted by the dominant culture” (113). Chugh builds on Tatum’s argument, stressing that ordinary privilege can take many forms and that individuals experience unique forms of tailwinds and headwinds based on their intersectional identities.

Chugh employs anecdotes not just to explain concepts and engage readers, but also to model behavior. For example, Joe serves as a model for the growth mindset Chugh promotes. Many white readers will identify with Joe, who grew up in a predominantly white environment and failed to see racial bias: “I didn’t have any sense of this growing up. I am figuring this out now” (94). Rather than dwell on his bias, Joe educates himself and changes his behavior, calling out an employee who tells a racist joke and asking her to speak to the colleague she offended. Joe also leaves GM to work for his father’s dental insurance business, where he hires members of underrepresented groups and serves marginalized patients on Medicaid. Thus, Joe recruits, leads, and serves people facing headwinds, modeling these behaviors for readers wanting to use their own ordinary privilege to help those facing headwinds. His behavior exemplifies Chugh’s recommendations to readers, notably, to break away from echo chambers, to listen to and amplify the voices of marginalized individuals, to expand networks to include diverse people and perspectives, and to pay attention to “blind spots.” Chugh’s anecdotes buttress one of her key themes: simply believing in equality does not result in equality. Social justice requires work. As Part 2, demonstrates, however, diversity is not a problem marginalized communities can solve on their own. Rather, it is one that requires the direct participation of people with ordinary privilege.