2450 - Is Racism Over? Science Has The Answer w/ Dr. Keon West

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder
Episode 2450
Title: Is Racism Over? Science Has The Answer w/ Dr. Keon West
Release Date: March 10, 2025
Host: Sam Seder
Guest: Dr. Keon West, Associate Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths University, London, Author of The Science of Racism: Everything You Need to Know but Probably Don't Yet

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Introduction

In this episode of The Majority Report with Sam Seder, host Sam Seder engages in a deep and insightful conversation with Dr. Keon West. The discussion centers around the pervasive issue of racism, examining whether it is still prevalent in today's society and exploring scientific perspectives on its existence, manifestations, and potential solutions.

Defining Racism

Dr. Keon West begins by clarifying the definition of racism, distinguishing it from related concepts such as prejudice, preference, and discrimination.

[28:04] Dr. Keon West: "Racism is any detectable difference in treatment that can be explained by race and cannot be explained by any other factor."

This clear, operational definition sets the foundation for the ensuing discussion, focusing on measurable and demonstrable instances of racial bias rather than subjective interpretations.

Detecting Racism: Experimental Approaches

The conversation delves into methodologies used to identify and measure racism, particularly through experimental psychology.

CV Testing Experiments:

Dr. West explains how manipulating variables in controlled experiments can reveal racial biases in decision-making processes.

[28:15] Dr. Keon West: "If two people do exactly the same thing but are of different races and receive different treatments, that difference is racism."

One notable study involves sending identical CVs with racially distinctive names to assess differential responses from employers.

[29:34] Dr. Keon West: "When all the results converge in that way, it becomes really hard to explain it any other way than race."

Systemic Racism vs. Interpersonal Racism

Emma Vigland introduces the concept of systemic racism, highlighting how societal structures perpetuate racial disparities.

[30:08] Emma Vigland: "Robert Moses constructed our public transportation in a way that disproportionately disadvantaged black people."

Dr. West acknowledges the complexity of systemic racism, noting that while his focus is on interpersonal racism through experiments, systemic racism requires its own set of analyses.

[30:47] Dr. Keon West: "Systemic racism often leaves statistical patterns that reveal unequal treatment, such as disparities in voting accessibility."

Racism in Various Sectors

The discussion highlights how racism manifests across different domains, supported by empirical research.

Education:

Dr. West cites studies where teachers, subconsciously or consciously, focus more on Black children when anticipating challenging behaviors, despite identical conduct across races.

[35:52] Dr. Keon West: "By the time children are three to five, they're already dealing with racism. Their teachers are expecting more negative things from them."

Healthcare:

Experiments demonstrate that Black patients receive less timely and effective medical treatment compared to their White counterparts with identical symptoms.

[38:52] Dr. Keon West: "White people with the same symptoms are more likely to receive life-saving treatments than Black people."

Law Enforcement:

A pivotal segment discusses racial disparities in police interactions, with data illustrating that Black individuals are disproportionately subjected to violence and lethal force.

[44:14] Dr. Keon West: "Black people are eight to nine times more likely to be tased in the UK, a trend that mirrors similar biases in the US."

Reverse Racism and DEI Initiatives

The episode addresses concerns surrounding reverse racism and the effectiveness of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs.

Reverse Racism:

Sam Seder brings up the notion of reverse racism, questioning whether policies aimed at correcting racial disparities disadvantage White individuals.

[53:20] Sam Seder: "Where does the concept of power come into this and the idea of reverse racism?"

Dr. West refutes the idea that DEI initiatives result in reverse racism, emphasizing that data consistently show White individuals are more likely to be selected and promoted across various sectors.

[54:17] Dr. Keon West: "Research shows that White people are still much more likely to be selected for everything than equally qualified people of color."

Effectiveness of DEI:

While acknowledging that current DEI practices are imperfect, Dr. West advocates for their continuation and improvement rather than abandonment.

[68:59] Dr. Keon West: "Scrapping DEI is saying we are comfortable with unfairness and are not planning to do anything about it, which is scientifically nonsensical."

Implicit vs. Explicit Bias

The conversation distinguishes between implicit (unconscious) and explicit (conscious) biases, exploring their roles in perpetuating racism.

Implicit Bias:

Dr. West discusses how unconscious biases can influence behavior without individuals' awareness, though he also points out that not all biases are unconscious.

[41:25] Dr. Keon West: "People sometimes are unaware of their biases, but other times they are perfectly conscious of their discriminatory actions."

Explicit Bias:

The episode underscores that explicit racism, where individuals are fully aware of their biases, contributes significantly to systemic inequalities.

Mitigating Racism: Strategies and Solutions

Education and Awareness:

Dr. West emphasizes the importance of educating individuals about the realities of racism through clear, empirical evidence.

[72:37] Dr. Keon West: "If you can show people clear, unambiguous data demonstrating racial disparities, many will acknowledge the problem and seek change."

Policy and Structural Changes:

Advocating for mandated, scientifically-backed DEI programs, Dr. West suggests that structured policies can more effectively address systemic issues than ad-hoc corporate initiatives.

[66:07] Dr. Keon West: "DEI should be centralized and structured based on scientific research to ensure effectiveness."

Addressing Uncomfortable Realities:

The discussion acknowledges that confronting racism may evoke discomfort, but this discomfort is a necessary step toward societal change.

[60:42] Dr. Keon West: "Most people who are swayed by racist arguments are uncomfortable with their own biases and want fairness to prevail."

Conclusion

The episode with Dr. Keon West offers a rigorous, data-driven exploration of racism, challenging listeners to confront both implicit and explicit biases within themselves and societal structures. By defining racism clearly, presenting empirical evidence of its persistence across various sectors, and advocating for informed policy interventions, the conversation underscores that racism is far from being over. Instead, it calls for continued vigilance, education, and structural reforms to address and dismantle enduring racial inequalities.

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Notable Quotes:

• Dr. Keon West [28:04]: "Racism is any detectable difference in treatment that can be explained by race and cannot be explained by any other factor."

• Dr. Keon West [35:52]: "By the time children are three to five, they're already dealing with racism. Their teachers are expecting more negative things from them."

• Dr. Keon West [44:14]: "Black people are eight to nine times more likely to be tased in the UK, a trend that mirrors similar biases in the US."

• Dr. Keon West [54:17]: "Research shows that White people are still much more likely to be selected for everything than equally qualified people of color."

• Dr. Keon West [68:59]: "Scrapping DEI is saying we are comfortable with unfairness and are not planning to do anything about it, which is scientifically nonsensical."

• Dr. Keon West [72:37]: "If you can show people clear, unambiguous data demonstrating racial disparities, many will acknowledge the problem and seek change."

Key Takeaways:

1. Definition Clarity: Understanding racism requires distinguishing it from other forms of bias, focusing on measurable differences in treatment based on race.
2. Empirical Evidence: Numerous experiments across sectors like employment, education, healthcare, and law enforcement consistently reveal racial biases.
3. Systemic vs. Interpersonal Racism: Both systemic structures and individual interactions perpetuate racial disparities, necessitating comprehensive approaches to address them.
4. Effectiveness of DEI: While current DEI initiatives have shortcomings, they are essential tools in combating racism and should be restructured for greater efficacy rather than discarded.
5. Implicit and Explicit Biases: Recognizing and addressing both unconscious and conscious biases is crucial in the fight against racism.
6. Education as a Solution: Providing clear, data-driven education about racial disparities can foster awareness and motivate societal change.

This episode serves as a compelling call to action, urging listeners to engage with the scientific realities of racism and participate in meaningful efforts to eradicate it from all facets of society.

Transcript

[Emma Vigland]

You are listening to a free version.

[Sam Cedar]

Of the Majority Report.

[Emma Vigland]

Support this [e-mail] and get an extra.

[Sam Cedar]

Hour of content daily. It is Monday, March 10, 2025. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gow Canal in the heartland of America, Downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Dr. Keon West, Associate professor of psychology at Goldsmith University, London, author of the Science of Racism. Everything you need to know but probably don't yet. Meanwhile, Mark Carney, former governor of Canada's Central bank, chosen by the Liberals to take office as Prime Minister imminently, like in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, speaking of days, we are four days from the government shutdown. Republicans want to go it alone with a very dirty continuing resolution. Meanwhile, Trump administration cancels $400 million in grants to Columbia University and sends the DHS to literally disappear. The lead negotiator of the Palestinian solidarity.

[Emma Vigland]

Encamp, his wife is eight months pregnant.

[Sam Cedar]

And he had a green card Permanent citizen. Excuse me, permanent resident. Israel cuts last vestige of electricity to Gaza closing a desalination plant provided drinking water for people in Gaza. Trump threatens Canada with dairy and lumber tariffs as the Ontario premier levies a tariff on power headed to the states. The DOJ inspecting egg producers as prices soar. Huh, funny that. Meanwhile, Trump says we may have a recession, but don't worry. Climate NonProfit sues the EPA over frozen funds as 20 Democratic state AGs sue the Trump administration over the federal worker purge. Trump looking to deny loan forgiveness to workers working with migrants. Diversity programs or trans youth. HHS grants DOGE access to child support database. Measles continues to spread in Texas and takes a big jump in New Mexico. All this and much, much more on today's Majority Report. Welcome ladies and gentlemen. Thanks so much for joining us.

[Emma Vigland]

It is fun day Monday.

[Sam Cedar]

Super fun Sunday. Monday.

[Emma Vigland]

How are you?

[Sam Cedar]

Fine, yeah, why? How are you?

[Emma Vigland]

I'm fine. No need to get so defensive.

[Sam Cedar]

Emma was on what do you call last night?

[Emma Vigland]

I was on Eamon's show on msnbc.

[Sam Cedar]

So was that your cable television debut?

[Emma Vigland]

It was my cable tele. Well, actually I've been on i24 news back in the day. Didn't Michael do some of that sometimes too?

[Dr. Keon West]

Yeah, Michael did a few.

[Emma Vigland]

24, yeah. And you know to. To be the anti Israel voice back in the day before they committed active genocide. But yeah, I would say of like the real cable behemoths, this was my debut so people should check that out. If you check that out, if you have Peacock, I think the full episode is up for Eamon show your Jubilee dropped. Over the weekend, I'm getting texts from, like, family members who would never pay attention to this about how much you destroyed.

[Sam Cedar]

The jubilee thing went up and I sort of felt at the time, you know, a little flummoxed by sort of the nature of the people who were. They found. You're staring into the abyss a little bit. And it was. I do remember, like, leaving. I had one or two friends who were there, and they just walked out of there with like, their. Their jaws were dropped because they're not. They're. They're normies. They're not. They don't follow this stuff. And they were both closer to my age and they were both sort of horrified. And I think I sort of blocked it out a little bit that, you know, I mean, there was one or two people who. There was like, at least an argument, the rest a little disturbing. And it turns out one of them is a sort of professional. Look, I think it's a. I think it's inaccurate to say Nazi. But of course, you know, in 1929, people wouldn't have necessarily said, those guys, they're going to be Nazis, like, because, you know, so, yeah, I don't know what the word would be today because it's not. Nobody's going to be wearing Nazi uniforms. But they are unreconstructed white nationalist, racist apartheid supporters. Yeah. And so one of them turns out to work for that guy Elijah Schaefer, which I didn't know. And I do, I will say this, that there were a lot of people on my Twitter feed this weekend, or I should say yesterday, who were reminding me that I'm a Jew.

[Emma Vigland]

Oh, yep. Did you need the reminder?

[Sam Cedar]

I mean, you know, from moment to moment, sometimes you don't think about it. And then this way, I got to, you know, be reminded on a consistent basis. The. The funny part is they were all justifying it by saying, oh, but it's okay for Israel to be. To have its own. And. And I didn't respond to everybody and say, actually, no, I have a problem with that as well. But nevertheless, that's what it was. We'll. We'll maybe do a couple of clips of it. I don't know.

[Emma Vigland]

We should.

[Sam Cedar]

I was. I'm actually contemplating by like the end of the week or something going through it because there's. I made a mistake about Social Security.

[Emma Vigland]

What'd you say?

[Sam Cedar]

I. I think they fact checked it. I'M not sure I asked them to because I was wrong.

[Emma Vigland]

Oh, no.

[Sam Cedar]

This thing was recording in January, and I know there was like a two or three week period of time where I had read people suggesting that the trust fund, once it's depleted Social Security would only pay out 78%, and in fact, it's 83% that it's going to pay out. So I shortchanged people 5%. Now, I think it's also possible there are three. There are three essentially sets of predictions within the Social Security trust report, trust fund report, or administrator report. One being the intermediate one being the most sort of like, rosy, one being the most skeptical. And it's possible that I read the most skeptical as opposed to the intermediate one, which is one everybody uses. Even the most rosy is generally conservative in its prediction in the future because we don't know for sure. If the economy's booming, then Social Security extends, like, you know, I can tell you in 2004, we thought the trust fund was going to last until 2033. Now it seems to be closer to 2035. So, you know, these things are checked. But I made a mistake and I want to own up to it.

[Emma Vigland]

I've seen the New York Times cite 78%, but then I've seen other outlets cite 83. So the. Even when you're wrong, you're not really wrong.

[Sam Cedar]

Vatov said. Did you give that guy your number? We want to have a live second debate on. Mr. After the recording, I invited the guy into the green room. I showed him on the phone about the cutting poverty in half. I don't know if that impacted his perspective on things, but there it was. All right, so egg prices, if you haven't checked lately, are rather expensive.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

A big part of this, of course, is because of the bird flu, which the Trump administration seems only to slightly be taking somewhat seriously, although with incredibly crazy ideas that we're almost watching, like the redux of. What about bleach? If we put bleach inside of us, you know, because they're talking about, like, chickens don't fly. So maybe what we do is we kill the rest of the birds. Honestly.

[Emma Vigland]

Oh, my God.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah. And they fired the people at the USDA who are supposed to be responsible for this. They tried to get them back. I wonder if they will. The DOJ is also looking into the problem that we have a potential monopoly within the egg producers. We have monopolies in ton of these things. Yes, that's encouraging.

[Emma Vigland]

But they're also looking into the potential that they are Price gouging on eggs, which I was told by a lot of folks in the New York Times back in the day that this was a left wing conspiracy theory, the greedflation thing. Now even the Trump administration is accepting the fact that a lot of this inflationary stuff was the result of corporations taking advantage of the pandemic and price gouging people.

[Sam Cedar]

I can't believe that. No, that's not true. And here is Donald Trump and his Treasury Secretary. Let's start with the Treasury Secretary, Treasury Secretary Bessant. I'm not exactly sure what an economic detox means, but this is what the guy is saying. We should be anticipating.

[Emma Vigland]

There's going to be a natural adjustment as we move away from public spending to private spending.

[Dr. Keon West]

The market and the economy have just become hooked and we become addicted to.

[Emma Vigland]

This government spending and there's going to.

[Dr. Keon West]

Be a detox period. There's going to be a detox.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, I think that, okay, that is a roundabout way of saying we're going to maybe have a recession. The idea that we're addicted to government spending is one of the dumbest concepts that you could possibly have. The only difference is going to be, is that we're going to be addicted to, to private spending and private spending far less efficient. This is just simply a fact because the definitionally, if it's private spending and we're talking about on a scale to replace government agencies, because that's what we're talking about. They're going to privatize, you know, national parks, incidentally. National parks like the IRS. Six to one return on the dollar. Every $1 you spend at the, in a federal park, the government does. We get six back on that. That's going to be privatized. I think we were talking about that 10 years ago.

[Emma Vigland]

Oh yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

About their desire to do that. All of these things are going to privatized, LOP 10, 20% off of the cost. And know that, that that's the inefficiency there because that's what the board of directors, that's what the shareholders are going to want in terms of profit. And that's a minimum. That's a minimum.

[Emma Vigland]

He is admitting there that they're doing shock therapy on the, on the, on the country. Like that is the shock doctrine. They are trying to privatize everything but they're creating a temporary economic harm essentially knowing that that's going to happen to people so they can build the country back up in their image, which is a really privatized model. Elon Musk was on Stage at CPAC with Javier Milei, who with a chainsaw, which is what Milei did in Argentina. And now over 50% of the population is in poverty as he got social programs and also attacked government workers down in Argentina as well. It's the same model and that's incredibly scary. It's a giant crypto scam and a privatization scheme using shock therapy on the public.

[Sam Cedar]

And the idea of like being addicted to government spending is so baby brained. We're going to be like we're addicted to money in many respects too. Like we need it to buy things. Right? And so just even the concept of being addicted to government spending is absurd. We can always have government spending unless of course, we cut taxes and just allow big corporations to do the job of government, but to do it poorly because their number one job will be profit making. Here's Donald Trump, also a little hesitant to admit that we're going to go through a detox. And I want to ask you about Ukraine and the blow up the other day with Zelensky.

[Dr. Keon West]

Let me stay on the economy for.

[Sam Cedar]

A moment because there are rising worries about a slowdown. You've got the Atlanta Federal Reserve saying we're going to have a contraction in the first quarter. Look, I know that you inherited a mess and you've been here. Are you expecting a recession this year? I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing. And there are always periods of. It takes a little time. It takes a little time. But I don't, I think it should be great for us. I mean, I think it should be great. It's going to be great ultimately for the farmer, you know, don't forget. I mean, so there it is. I mean, he, he and Bessant have obviously talked about this. And to the extent that Trump can absorb anything, he knows that like there's going to be a little bit of pain. And when I say there's going to be a little bit of pain, I don't mean for me or rich people, but for the others, the others, there's going to be pain.

[Emma Vigland]

That's what the tariffs are as well. They are a compounding regressive tax like the sales tax that disproportionately affects people of lower income or working people, middle class people too. This just makes it so that the price of goods increase. And Trump is saying we can get all this revenue, but you know what? We could also do is just tax the rich, but that's what they don't want to do. And so this is going to be on the backs of everyday people. That's the reality of this.

[Sam Cedar]

Amber makes the point that they're not looking to just privatize national parks, that they are also looking to privatize Social Security. And this again, has been at least a 20 year goal specifically to privatize it. And I have no doubt that's what this is about. The idea of like, you know, fraud and waste and all this always been a cover. In fact, I dedicated a big chunk of my Jubilee in anticipation of this. Their attack on Social Security might have been better if it came out like in a month or two when they really are. It's really quite clear. Although right now we can see their Social Security administration is under assault. And when they make it look like there's a problem, you know, doing all this, government's inefficient. Doing it with one quarter of the workforce it's supposed to have to execute this. We need to send it to, I don't know, UnitedHealth. They'll maybe they'll do our Social Security. It has to be said we don't spend that much. Our governments don't spend that much. Per GDP, it's about 33, 36%. There's countries in Europe that 40 to 50%. We do not spend a lot. And that 36% is on the entire operation. Operations. 36% of our GDP on the entire operations. There was a guy in. What do you call it in the, the whatever it was I just did, the Jubilee thing, who said that was welfare as opposed to everything? Well, Welfare is like 1 to 2, like 4% if you include, like, you're very generous with that definition. The national park spending also returns more money than we. Yeah, that's what I just said. Six to one.

[Dr. Keon West]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Irs six, seven to one.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah. I mean, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

[Sam Cedar]

But imagine if H R Block did it instead. Gregorian wants to know, how do we. How would you privatize Social Security? You would have it, the administration of it done privately. And then you just put into the stock market. And of course, who's going to invest it for you? Whoa. A whole cadre of financial advisors get some nice fees, and not only are they going to have fees, but they're going to be able to manipulate the market. If you give me billions upon billions upon billions of dollars to manage, I can decide which stocks are going to perform well. Yeah, I mean, this is the, the, you know, this is why people track huge funds, pension funds, and who's administering these funds. Because you know, when they sink this money into a sector or a specific company, it's going to go up. We'll do a Social Security privatization, sort of like a throwback from George W. Bush and the way that he set it up too incidentally, same deal, walked into a room in treasury and go look it, there's no money here. It's all just IOUs, just paper incidentally, our currency paper as well. Folks, I've mentioned this a while ago. A couple people actually complimented me on the jubilee video on my hairline. Yeah. And I think part of the reason why my hairline's looking so good these days is because of the neutrophil I've been taking for over a year now. What is Neutral? It is a science backed whole body approach to nourish growth from within and achieve your best hair yet. Neutrophil is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people. See thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding in just three to six months with Neutral fall. Both Emma and I know people who've had really extreme results with this. Like they had a hair loss problem and neutrophil helped them. 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[Dr. Keon West]

Thank you. Thanks. That's very nice of you.

[Sam Cedar]

Let me ask you this. It just struck me just from my days of schooling, coming from the psychology department, doing what would be considered a, what sounds to me sort of like almost like a sociological endeavor. Why did you take this approach? Because it is a very data driven approach to the existence of racism.

[Dr. Keon West]

Okay. So I think that's worth answering in a number of ways. So first of all, I think I actually I'm not a, an associate professor at Goldsmith. That wouldn't be true for some time. So that explains everything. So I, I've been a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science instead, and I've been working in this area for quite a while at a number of different universities. And I think there is a perception amongst other people that psychology really is a science without numbers, that it's a science of doing things and then hearing what people feel and how people think. And it's a lot of qualitative, a lot of writing stuff down. And that is true, there is some qualitative research. But I think people overestimate, sorry, people underestimate the vast amount of aggressively quantitative, aggressively numerical psychological stuff. And I think that's sometimes hidden by the way that we talk about, think about present psychology in the media. But the fact is we do a lot of numbers and a huge amount of statistics and we care about them enormously. And that's why we tend to align with the political scientists and with other such scientists more than with people who write things down about feelings.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, great.

[Dr. Keon West]

All right.

[Sam Cedar]

With that said, let's, let's just Start with the. I guess the sort of. The question you ask at the first part of your book is how do we know if racism is real? And in this country there has been by some a contention that, well, to the extent that racism was ever real, it ended when we had elected a black president in this country. Proof that there is no more racism. But how do we know that racism. Or before we even get to that, let's distinguish between the idea of what is and what is not racism.

[Dr. Keon West]

Sure.

[Sam Cedar]

Define racism for us so that we can differentiate it from prejudice, preference, even discrimination.

[Dr. Keon West]

Sure. So I think there's a lot of concepts there, each of which could be a whole chapter defining them. I don't like to do that. I hate the long winded definitions. For me, I will define racism and have in the book as any detectable difference in treatment that can be explained by race and cannot be explained by any other thing. So what does that mean in even simpler terms? It means if two people do exactly the same thing, but they are different races and they get exactly the same treatment, no racism. If they get different treatment, racism. Very, very simple. And that bleeds really easily into your other question. Well, how do we test for racism to do that? You just create any set of stimuli. So the one I start with in the book is a cv. So you could take my CV or your cv, make a couple hundred or a couple thousand copies of exactly the same cv, and then all you have to do is change the names at the tops of the CV to make it look like a white person sent them or a black person sent them, or a Latino sent them, or a Chinese person sent them or whatever. And if all the names get the same callbacks, the same job offers, the same offers of payment, no racism. If there is a difference though. And since we kept everything stable except for the race of the people sending the CVs, any differences are racism. That's how you detect the racism.

[Emma Vigland]

How do you detect it? In things like societal structures. Right. Like, I mean, I think about the way our cities are. We're here in New York City. Robert Moses constructed our public transportation in a way that disproportionately disadvantaged black people in the city. I mean, the pools were colder and it's more difficult to get to the beach if you were in a neighborhood that was more traditionally black or lower income. That's a more systemic view. Right. How do you test that in your analysis?

[Dr. Keon West]

So the systemic racism isn't the thing that's normally tested for with the kind of experiments that I do. And I don't want to say that it's not important or it's not interesting. And I do mention it in the book as well. It's incredibly important. My area is slightly more in the experimental psychology of things. So I like to say, do people respond differently to this race versus that race? What I think is interesting about the systemic racism is that there's often a telltale trail. Sometimes for example, people will quite literally just write it down. So they will say we don't want black people living in this neighborhood. So there'll be clauses, for example, in certain houses that say you can't sell them to black people. And that's just written down. So we know that's a systemic thing. In the case of the British immigration system, there is a document where they say we do not want non white immigrants. How can we keep them out? And then they explain a system by which they only take some paperwork and not other paperwork. Sometimes they're not so nice as to write it down. So it'd be great if racist people wrote everything down when they decided to be racist, but they're normally not so obliging. Instead what tends to happen is that there's particular statistical patterns which for example can be seen in the American voting system. So we know that people who aren't white are much less likely to have certain forms of id and these forms of ID are required to vote. And just by putting those two things together you end up with systemic racism where people who aren't white are less likely to vote. You could change this by changing the ID or changing the requirement, as many other countries do. But if you don't, what you end up with, it's a systemic form of racism.

[Sam Cedar]

And that when we're talking about that is sort of a de facto racism. Right. We're not talking about. In your work here is specifically about trying to show where it exists within society in a specific data driven way. So let's get back to the hiring. We talked about the CVs.

[Dr. Keon West]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

How do we know in the process and one of the things you do in the book is really sort of like tease out almost, I guess the process as much. I mean there's a certain amount of like sort of lesson about, about how you do science in these situations. So how do we know that, how do we know that the CV reader reads this name as being, I mean I think maybe Hispanic is a little bit more self evident, but like as being black or you know, non white.

[Dr. Keon West]

Sure. There are many different ways you could know that. So, for example, one of the experiments uses a name that just sounds very stereotypically black, like Jamal Jenkins. And most people who you send that to and you say, guess the race of this person, they will agree, oh, this person sounds black to me. And you can do that with a bunch of other names, and you get other names that people agree, sound Indian, agree sound Chinese, agree, sound white. And so that's one way of testing it. These experiments, though, don't just use names. So they also sometimes use pictures, which is, again, much easier. And I know there's some ambiguity even in pictures. You could look at pictures and you could think a person's white, black or Latino or something else. But generally people tend to agree. Some of these experiments use actual human beings who go in and present themselves with exactly the same qualifications. And these are people who genuinely identify as white, black or Latino. And the thing is, it doesn't really matter how you do it. Whether you use the names or the pictures or the people, you tend to get the same results. And when all the results converge in that way, it becomes really hard to say, well, maybe this really strange, incredibly reliable systematic difference between the way these CVs are accepted and those CVs are accepted is due to anything other than race. It just becomes really difficult to explain it any other way.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's talk about the other areas where you have both done your own research and have sort of compiled, I guess, aggregated different studies. We see it. One of the ones that struck me was the teachers assessing the behavior of, I think it was kindergarten students.

[Dr. Keon West]

Yes, very, very young students. I think they were three to five, though, don't quote me on that. I mean, they were really quite young.

[Sam Cedar]

And walk us through what that that experiment showed as well.

[Dr. Keon West]

Yeah, so this wasn't one of my experiments, although it's one I really like because it's one where we get to break out some of the fancy equipment. And the fancy equipment in this case was eye tracking software. So to see where are the teachers looking? And you can have two conditions. Then you just put the eye tracking equipment on the teachers and see who they look at. And sometimes they look at this child, sometimes they look at that child. But then you tell the teachers, look out. There's going to be some bad behavior in this classroom. Some of these are naughty children. I think the actual words they used in the experiment was challenging. They're going to be some challenging behaviors in the classroom. And then you can see where the teachers start looking. And when the teachers were told to look out for the challenging behavior, they hyper focused on the black children and in particular the black boys. They didn't look at the white children as much, even though none of the children were behaving badly. And what this showed is that by the time children and these were real instructors, by the way, real teachers from a teacher conference. And this shows that by the time children are three to five, they're already dealing with racism. Their teachers are already expecting more negative things from them. And we can't pretend that this is something we can start dealing with when they're 7 or 10, because that's years of just enduring lower expectations and greater expectations of bad behavior. By the time we start to talk.

[Sam Cedar]

About it in these experiments, is the race of the human resources person or the teacher, is that predictive of how they're going to respond to the different races that they're viewing or assessing? You know, so on.

[Dr. Keon West]

Sadly, the answer is not nearly as predictive as we'd hope it would be. So we, we'd like to imagine, for example, that if I were to send all these CVs out and white people were to get them, then they do that reliable thing where they pick more white people than black people or offer the white people more money. But if we were to send it to black human resource people, they shouldn't do that. Right? Or they might even overselect the black people. Unfortunately, that's not really what happens. Sometimes you can get situations in which black people overselect other black people in which they're nicer to other black people. But generally, no, what you find is that ethnic minorities tend to perpetuate the same patterns of discrimination that white people do. It can be softened a bit and it can be less reliable. But far too often when you conduct these experiments, the race of the person doing the picking doesn't actually change whether they offer more jobs or better jobs. That is an unfortunate finding.

[Sam Cedar]

Was that assessed in the context of the teachers too? Because I would imagine that there may be a different perspective depending on what profession you're in. You know, about police officer, for example. Well, you can run that because we're going to get to police in a moment. But. But it wasn't assessed.

[Dr. Keon West]

Yeah, for the teachers in that one it wasn't. But there's other similar research. So for example, there was one on prospective PhD students who send, you know, if I don't know if you've ever thought about doing a PhD, but you have to send an email to a professor saying hello, so. And so I'd like you to be my supervisor. And this was thousands of emails sent. And they did change the name of the person sending the email to sound white or black. And they did send them to a number of different professors. So white professors, black professors, all sorts of races of professors. And in that experiment they found that it wasn't predictive at all. The race of the professor made no difference in any way. So again, the experiments aren't all exactly the same. Some of them will show a bit of an effect this way or a bit of an effect that way. But the overall conclusion from a lot of experiments is you cannot solve this problem just by getting in more black teachers or more black professors. They will continue generally the same patterns of discrimination.

[Sam Cedar]

Before we get to the dynamics of, of police and policing, what other sectors? Is there another sector that sticks out to you that where there's an experiment that is particularly egregious or noteworthy in your mind?

[Dr. Keon West]

Well, I won't mention police because you mentioned that. You want to get to that later?

[Sam Cedar]

I will get to that in just a moment.

[Dr. Keon West]

But there is the experiment with the doctor's offices where black, white and Latino people call in with the same symptoms and statuses and the white people get offered appointments sooner. There's the other one in which black and white people present with the same symptoms. But white people are more likely to get the life saving heart, whatever treatment, myocardial infarction treatment, which I think is just a heart attack, I'm not that kind of doctor. But the white people are more likely to get the right treatment for that and the black people are less likely to. Those strike me as particularly horrifying because they could kill you. And this is important, this is important not to know that. But it's in romance and it's in friendship and it's in, in the way that we treat children and it's the way children treat each other. It's in everything. Like there's not a sector where you don't find this. And I think that's the really depressing thing. If you can think of any way that we could test anything, you could send people into shops, you could put them on dating websites, you could make them sell things on ebay. If you can change the skin color of the person doing those things, you will find effects based on that. And you find that essentially every time.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, it's a different sort of, I guess, qualitative inquiry, but. And then I want to get to the cops. But is there a, is there a difference? I mean, to what extent have you delved into the why, like, and if the motivation for these things after the fact. Like, a lot of times, I know with the CV stuff, you can't really contact the HR people because otherwise it's tough to maintain future experiments. Like, they literally hire or don't hire these people and don't ever hear back. And that's part of the. The to maintain the integrity of the experiments. But is there. Does the why stuff, like what? You know, I. I cannot remember the author that we spoke to years ago, but I think she followed a similar inquiry based upon just sort of like, I think her own child being on an airplane, being nervous, her own child who was black, being nervous when there was another black person who came onto the airplane or something, responding to whatever the media or society has been sort of like communicating on some level to this child. Do we have a sense of, like, what motivates these things?

[Dr. Keon West]

So several things motivate these things. And I think that has to be acknowledged in a big way. I think in recent times we've leaned into the idea that this is all motivated by unconscious bias, that people don't realize that they're seeing things differently or behaving differently because some people are white and some people are black. And the unconscious bias literature is big and complicated, and I do touch on it in the book. And some of it is a kind of bias that we don't realize we have. So that's absolutely true. However, it's also incredibly important to acknowledge that sometimes the evidence shows really clearly there is nothing unconscious about this bias. People are perfectly aware of what they're doing and they're doing it on purpose. There's a really great experiment that I do talk about in the book in which they send actual human beings, not just the CVs, but one's white, one's black, one's Latino. And people do all sorts of interesting things. They tell the black person, oh, we're going to have to call to see about your references. But they don't say that to the white person or the Latino person.

[Sam Cedar]

To be clear, these are. People go in with the exact same.

[Dr. Keon West]

References, exactly the same reference.

[Sam Cedar]

Everything is the same. The dress that they're wearing is the same. Everything's the same.

[Dr. Keon West]

Everything the same. Yeah. And in fact, not only do the people lie, they know they're lying. There was one person who was really quite clever. She told the black person, oh, sorry, there's no interviews. Everyone go. And then when they all left, all three of them left. She called the white and the Latino person back and said, oh, you too forgot to sign something. And when they came back into the office, she said, I was lying. You didn't forget to sign anything. I just needed to get rid of the black guy. Can you start working? So the idea that people are unconscious of the bias is just not true. And I think this was a 2009 study, but there's definitely more recent studies that show that people lie. I mean, she's probably still working somewhere, still hiring people somewhere. And we have to be aware of this, that, yes, sometimes there are genuine differences in perception based on bias, and that is true. But sometimes people know exactly what they're doing. And that is also true. We have to be aware of both.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's talk about police interactions.

[Dr. Keon West]

Yes.

[Sam Cedar]

I am told by people who refute the idea that black people are treated differently, at least in the context of the United States, by police, than white people in terms of, in terms of like being met with violence by the police, that that is wrong. What is the, what are the. What is the sort of the data show here?

[Dr. Keon West]

Yes. I always think that's such a bold claim to say that, you know, black people aren't treated differently by the police because that would imply the person's looked over quite a lot of data and has a really sound number understanding of it.

[Sam Cedar]

We operate in a YouTube world where claims like that are, do not, are not, are not formulated from extensive research or even reading about people's extensive research.

[Dr. Keon West]

Yeah. So I would say based on the extensive research, that position is, is untenable. It's entirely ridiculous. And this is a lot of research. So if you're looking at just the statistics, the statistics of it, you see that, yes, black people are much more likely to face violence at the hands of the police in the US and in other countries. So in the uk, where I live, research shows that black people are eight to nine times more likely to be tased than white people, and that this cannot be explained by any other aspect of the interaction, not by what they were doing or the crimes that they were accused of, or whether or not they were armed or whether or not they resisted. In fact, the data coming out of the United States shows that black people who are in fact shot by police officers are much more likely to be unarmed than white people who are shot by police officers. So there's quite a lot of gaps that aren't explained statistically. But I think the thing you're really interested in was the experiment with the kind of video game. I think that's the one that gets people's interest and to explain that. I have tried explaining this before, but I need to get more up to date. Video games. I know that the young people are playing Fortnite. I have never played Fortnite, but I gather that you shoot people in Fortnite. Yes. I mean, okay, so Emma's smiling. Yes. You shoot people in port.

[Sam Cedar]

I don't.

[Emma Vigland]

I know less than you.

[Dr. Keon West]

Okay, so imagine a version of Fortnite in which every time someone crosses your path and they have a gun, you have to shoot them. And every time they cross your path and they don't have a gun, you shouldn't shoot them. If you shoot them, something goes wrong. Right. So that's an easy video game. You shoot the people with guns. You don't shoot the people without guns. But now we change one more thing. Half of the people are white, half of the people are black. So sometimes there's a white person with a gun, a black person with a gun, a white person with no gun, black person with no gun. And then if you're an experimenter, you can see the mistakes that people make. Do they accidentally shoot certain people with no guns? And the answer is yes. And that's much more likely to be the black people in this little fortnight experiment. And do they accidentally fail to shoot people who actually do have guns? Yes, but that's much more likely to be the white people people. And so we can see that for police, because they ran this on police and they ran it on civilians. For both groups, there is a tendency to overshoot unarmed black people and to undershoot armed white people. And this is a real problem we have. What the experiments did find is that police are much better at shooting the right people than civilians. I think the researchers actually use the words trigger happy to describe the civilians, which I know will get under people's skin. But when you see the data, it's an excellent argument for not letting everyone have a gun, which I know is a right that Americans really care about, but it's a terrifying right when you look at who they accidentally shoot. You need training to have a gun. Says the science. But. But I don't want to get under people's skin by saying that.

[Sam Cedar]

So. So does those experiments also suggest that training can mitigate the. The sort of, like, instant reaction to assume to. To associate black person with threat of having a gun in that instance. But not so much as it would save. I mean, not as much as we would hope.

[Dr. Keon West]

So the training mitigates it. That's one thing that can mitigate it another thing that can mitigate it, which I don't think I talked about in the book, but it was another set of studies by the same researchers. So if you're interested, did it's by Coral and Judd. They did a lot of research on guns and who shoots who and who doesn't. But not only training. You can also just change the punishment and reward schedules and that also changes who gets shot and who doesn't get shot. So if you get into a lot of trouble for shooting certain people and not so much trouble for shooting other people, that tends to be where your mistakes go. Which is another disturbing aspect of how this works. Works. So in general, the effect doesn't go away with the police. That's not true at all. The police definitely enact violence in racialized patterns. But we know that we can handle this or reduce it. We know how to make it go down. It's just that not everyone does that.

[Sam Cedar]

I also what I found interesting was the data on we hear a lot of like black on black crime is one of the talking points that we hear quite a bit in this country. And it turns out that crime generally takes place amongst. Generally amongst people of the same race, regardless of their race.

[Dr. Keon West]

Yes. So you do hear a lot about black on black crime. The argument being whenever there is data presented that some group of people have harmed black people. So let's say the police are brutalizing black people. The idea is, well, the real problem is black on black crime. If you're a black person, you're most likely to be killed by another black person, which is true. But it's also true that if you're a white person, you're most likely to be killed by another white person. If you're an Indian person, you're most likely to be killed by another Indian person. If you're a Chinese person, you're most likely to be killed by another Chinese person. And I don't mean in India or in China. I mean in the United States of America. The way it works is you're most likely unfortunately to be killed by people you live, live near people you know, people you hang around. I actually don't know if this is true, but I vaguely remember on the Internet, so do not cite this. I hate when people cite random numbers from the Internet. But I heard somewhere that the most likely person to kill any given woman is her own husband. And most women marry husbands of the same race. So the way it works is you're probably going to be killed by someone of your own race. And so Black on black crime. While it is a thing, it's not a real thing. If it were, we should be talking about white on white crime. But we don't. And we never use it to excuse brutality against white people. That would be a horrifying, crass thing to do. But some people do it to excuse violence against black people.

[Sam Cedar]

I don't know that I've ever, ever heard a politician say the words white on white crime.

[Dr. Keon West]

Well, there's a lot of it.

[Sam Cedar]

I heard a lot of politicians say black on black crime, but I've never heard one say white on white crime. Let's talk about the. You've written not so much in the context of this book, but I know in the wake of the sort of the dei. Let's talk about that a little bit in terms of when we talk about sort of. Well, before we get to DEI or maybe as a good prelude to get talking about dei, let's talk about the idea of reverse racism and this concept of, of white be white people being subject to racism. I mean, we have this idea of where you can make an assessment based upon what we call, you know, race. And two people similarly situated will have, have different outcomes. And obviously you got to run this experiment many, many times to assess whether the decisions that are impacting these outcomes are guided by the race of the, of the, of the subject. But where does like the, the concept of power come into this and really being in a position to make the decisions come into this. And then let's also, then we'll get into so called reverse racism that people talk about.

[Dr. Keon West]

So I think that's a huge question. I'll see if I can break it down and address all the parts of it. So I hear the worry that some white people have, especially in the wake of things like diversity and inclusion and affirmative action, that what's happening now in society, the issue in American society is that if you're a white person, you're now being underprivileged relative to equally qualified people of color. That's why people say phrases like oh look, she's just a DEI hire or something like that. But I can say categorically this is not happening. No research supports the idea that this is happening. So if you're a white person and you're worried that people who are like black people who are as qualified as you are taking the jobs you're supposed to get, this is not a concern you should have, you should spend your time worrying about anything else. All the research shows that white people are still much more likely to be selected for everything than equally qualified people of color. So if that's the case, what are they worried about? And I could see a theoretical worry that, for example, some people are putting things in place that say deliberately, you should hire people of color or you should hire women, or you should hire whoever else, even if they're not that qualified. Or because the tide has shifted so aggressively, you could imagine me as a black person saying, well, I hate white people. I don't want them to do well in society, so I'm going to block them at every turn. I'm going to stop them from getting the good jobs. But again, practically, this isn't something I think white people ever need to worry about, or at least certainly not for the foreseeable future. None of the data support the idea that a this is happening. That's not true. Actually, most people who aren't white really like white people and genuinely want to get along with them and like them very much. There is just no evidence of widespread dislike of white people and least nothing that matches in general the way white people see people of color. But also, even if they all did hate white people, the truth is the power structures just aren't set up for people of color to enact the kind of widespread negativity against white people that even if we wanted to, we couldn't do it. We don't, we just don't have the numbers.

[Emma Vigland]

Does this to the point about, you know, it being kind of downstream from, from like how we structure our society? Of course. Like, does this ebb and flow? Is there an increase in more overt racism in certain periods of history where perhaps, I don't know, we're in a very far right reactionary time right now in this country. I wonder if that affects the data or if it's controlled for or if it's as uniform across time periods as, as anything.

[Dr. Keon West]

So I'd say it's not uniform across time periods or across countries at all. So if we think back historically, there are obvious huge crescendos in explicit racism. I think the most obvious one being 1939 to 1945. That's, I suppose, for some people within kind of living memory, and things were definitely a lot more racist then. I think what people forget is that there were aggressive eugenicists on both sides of the Atlantic, that there were British eugenicists and American eugenicists, and that the break from the Nazi eugenicists happened much later than many people realized that there were big pushes in racism. And we've been Talking a lot about white on black racism, but we forget the kind of obvious aggressive, explicit racism against Japanese Americans, for example, or Native Americans, for example, that comes in and out, that goes in its own crescendos. I'd say in general, the longer you go back, the further back in history you go, the worse things are if you're not white for about 400 years. So I wouldn't want to live 50 years ago. I think life now is much better than 50 years ago. I wouldn't want to live 100 years ago. And if I had to pick, I'd pick 50 over 100. I wouldn't want to live 200 years ago. And if I had to pick, I'd pick 100 over 200. But that said, there's definitely mini cycles and. And we do account for that. We do take that into account. The data stretches over a really long period of time. So we've been collecting data on stuff like this for about 70 years. But part of that is acknowledging that things do change. That I said we talk a lot about unconscious bias, and that was true for the last five years. I think for the next five years people might be talking more about very, very conscious bias, again, because there is more of that in some places that.

[Sam Cedar]

That sort of foreshadows. One of my final questions, particularly after having an experience recently in sort of a debate with people where this stuff was quite explicit. But what accounts for that? I mean, if there is variation within time, broad strokes, over the past 400 years, it has moved in one direction. But if there are spikes and dips, what. What accounts for it, in at least in your assessment? And to what extent does economics and culture play into those spikes? Changes in both those realms.

[Dr. Keon West]

Oh, so that is a huge question as well. What accounts for it is hard. There's so much that accounts for it. I'd like to focus on two things. Things, because I think there are two things, one of which isn't really that easy to control, and one is easier to control and one's more money and one's more psychology. And I think I'd like to talk about both because they're useful. So one of the patterns in society is that we tend to become more biased when things are more economically strained. So it's. Again, I'm not a historian, so take all the historical things I say with a pinch of salt. But there is a pattern in history which, again, you can see in the 1939-1945 period that when people are facing real economic threats, they look for Someone to blame. So maybe it's the Jewish people, maybe it's the immigrants, maybe it's the black people, maybe it's whatever other ethnicity it is, but they are the reason we don't have money. Now, this is never true. You know why? It doesn't make sense. In the uk, we have a strong thing about people coming across a channel in boats, and we say that they're the reason we don't have money, but obviously they're not the reason we don't have money. Because they don't have the money. We have to ask who has the money. That's obviously the reason we don't have the money. But we blame some group of people. And that kind of economic strain makes people generally less reasonable, less pleasant, and more likely to blame some kind of outsider. The other issue is more psychological, which is just the effect of social norms. If you have it in place that there are leaders, that there are people who are very influential who make it plain that being biased is fine, more people are going to be biased. People are kind of governed by their own desires and their own internal pushes and pulls. But we also go along with the crowd. And if the crowd says it's cool to hate gay people, or it's great to dislike black people, or you shouldn't hang out with Muslims, most people will go along regardless of their internal feelings. And it sounds a bit like high school, but we. We have to pay attention to what the cool kids are doing, what the popular kids are doing. And if the popular kids are being more racist, the society is going to get more racist.

[Sam Cedar]

So, I mean, that's essentially the perils of normalization.

[Dr. Keon West]

It's a peril of normalization. I prefer to talk about it more in terms of setting the social norms. Normalization can be a slightly different thing. It's a slightly more insidious thing in some ways. So if I were to come on and say everybody's super racist, racism is terrible because everybody around is super racist. Ironically, I might be pushing people to become slightly more racist because I'm normalizing the idea of people being racist. And the truth is actually that most people most of the time don't want to think of themselves as racist. Even incredibly racist people, people who are aggressively, overtly racist, don't think of themselves as racist a lot of the time. They think of themselves as fair and reasonable and honest and decent. It's just that they believe some races are genuinely, intellectually or morally inferior to others. And I think if you could show them the inconsistency if you can show most people that their behaviors, their actions or their beliefs are really quite racist, most people would find that very uncomfortable and want to change.

[Sam Cedar]

Let me just jump ahead because I want to talk a little bit about DEI as a mitigating factor. But. But what of those who don't feel uncomfortable about it? Like, I mean, I think we're living in an era. This just came up because there was a debate that I did in January and it with like 20 conservatives, and one of the women came up and I had. My claim was that if you are not a nationalist xenophobe, then if you are one, then you should be happy that Trump won or something. Something to that effect. And she came up, she says, what's wrong with being a nationalist xenophobe? We have a white culture, and what's wrong with having that? And I was like, okay, this is not. You've made my argument. But. But I left that thinking, like, there is a comfortability factor and this is a video. She, you know, she knew she was coming on this. And there is, you know, there's going to be anywhere from 1 to 5 million people who watch that video, and she's proud of it. She was on Twitter, you know, sort of like joyous that she was, you know, sort of like a part of the promo. And, and my reaction has been two things. Like, one, I was like, oh, this seems to be. People have a lot more confidence with this than they may have 10 years ago expressing this. And two, like, I'm questioning whether I should have been part of that. As, like, am. I mean, honestly, like, is this.

[Emma Vigland]

They're being normalized.

[Sam Cedar]

Are they being normalized for, you know, in my layman's person, of the, of the term, like, what. What of those people who are. Lack any sort of, like, uncomfortability and where do we. How do we respond to that? And more broadly, these other sort of like, notions of implicit or unconscious bias.

[Dr. Keon West]

Yes. So I would say it is a genuine, legitimate criticism of my book, that it doesn't really tell people not to be racist, that it isn't. I do say it's not a political book, and I am quite serious about that. It's a scientific book. So it tells people, this is what's happening. This is the racism we know is happening because of science. This is how to make it go up, this is how to make it go down. So theoretically, that woman you were talking about could say, oh, great. And she would grab the book and read it and say, oh, this is how you make it go up. And she'd just love more racism and she'd really be into that. And in theory, you could use the book that way. What I would say is that most people don't want that most people don't like the idea of being racist. And I think we can focus a lot on the people who are very comfortable with being racist. But if we do that, we are kind of doing ourselves a disservice because we're ignoring the much larger proportion of people who are swayed by some of the arguments of these people but are deeply uncomfortable with their racism. That said, the book also does touch a bit on what it means to do something about racism. And this is not a scientific question. It is a political question. So take everything I say after this point with a huge grain of salt, because it's just my political opinions. But to some extent, we have a fight on our hands and we must recognize that. That I really, I really respect my pacifist friends. My wife is a pacifist. But I do think anyone who thought you could just sit Hitler down and have a real discussion with him about the error of his ways, it's foolish. At some point, the fighting has to start. And when you deal with people who are openly, aggressively biased, openly xenophobic, openly eugenicists, openly genocidal, openly, whatever else, else, at some point we have to recognize we need to restrict their power, restrict their abilities to influence other people, restrict their ownership of weaponry. You have to start taking these steps because they're willing to take these steps. And you don't want to be surprised, attacked by Nazis. I think you want to at least have some preparation in place. But that's my political stance on it, and that's because I don't like racism. But it's not a scientific stance. I think you should do whatever your political, your political stance dictates.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, well, getting back to the sort of the scientific part about how you mitigate it. So, you know, this woman may buy your book and be like, oh, this is great. I have a recipe to increase racism, which, you know, I don't think they would have gotten this far in the interview. So I think we're safe in that regard. But from the perspective of wanting to mitigate it, sounds like the idea is, is you focus on the uncomfortability that people may have with being racist. One that may be even less specific than their reasons to be racist or their feelings of racism. Like a general uncomfortability, general understanding that this somehow is wrong or not in the Interests of society or whatnot, not how do you work on that? And where does like DEI come into that?

[Dr. Keon West]

So how do I work on that? Yeah, I think, yeah, I think the first thing is a lot of the rhetoric with people who wouldn't describe themselves as racist, but who I would say would do racist things really stems from the idea that we live in a good place in a meritocracy and in if whatever other race of people would just do the good thing, they get the good result. So when you look at, for example, people who complain about dei, an underlying complaint is that by getting rid of dei we're reinforcing a meritocracy. And that's just a lie. It's a huge important lie. And I think there's a lot of people out there who think that if black and white people just had exactly the same CVs, they'd get exactly the same job offer. If they're made to understand that that just isn't true, that we are not hiring the best people, we're not paying people fairly, we're not promoting people at the right time, then many people do acknowledge that this is a problem and do want it to change. They do want the fairness to happen. So a lot of it is education. If you show people really clear unambiguous data, which we have, that says that for the same evidence, black people and white people don't go to prison at the same rates and they don't stay in prison for the same amount of time again, again, totally true, totally provable. Most people at that point say, well, that is wrong. I can see that there is something wrong with that. And so most people who are really invested in the meritocracy will really dislike seeing how non meritocratic society is and they will want to change it. And those who are just fine saying, well, I want society to work very unfairly and in my favor now at least we know where they stand and we know who they are. And when it comes specifically to the DEI stuff, I do acknowledge that DEI is imperfect, like really imperfect. And I would say actually if I had my way, DEI would be done completely differently. It would be centralized, it would be structured, it would not be based on the whims of what companies wanted, but on something that was more mandated, that was more specific, that was based on scientific research and that we knew actually worked. Because it's kind of a client driven industry at the moment. Companies can do whatever they want and they can do things that they like or that feels good, but that it's not necessarily effective. So that is a real change that must be made. But I wholeheartedly have to say that the idea of getting rid of DEI 100% and thinking this will make anything better is scientifically just nonsense. It will make things worse. We have a problem where people are not treated fairly, where they're not hired at the right rates, where they're not paid the right amount. And we know that this is because of the color of their skin and also because of their gender and sexual orientation and other things. We know this. And so to just scrap the DEI is saying we are comfortable with this and are not planning to do anything about it.

[Sam Cedar]

I guess. Lastly, like, what of those who are impervious, who have the implicit bias or the unconscious bias? They're not part of that group of like, oh, I want to read this book to, to increase racism. But what of that set that where data. I mean, we have a problem. I don't know if it's happening in your country to the extent that it is in ours, but we have a problem with people just sort of explicitly not accepting data from scientists. And so from a more psychological level, is there something else that can sort of be. Go hand in hand with that, that data that in and of itself, I don't think these days is going to convince anybody.

[Dr. Keon West]

Well, I want to draw a distinction between people not being convinced by data and people not being convinced by scientists or by research. And I think these are kind of different things. So. So if I were to come on here and say, I'm a scientist, racism is real, you should believe me. I think a lot of people would say no in America and in other places, and I honestly respect them for that. I don't think you should believe anyone because they come on a program and say, I have a fancy degree, which I do, by the way, very fancy, and therefore you should believe me. That's silly. That's an argument from authority and should be ignored. I also think that people are often presented with, with data like stats to say racism is a problem, where they say, oh well, look, black people are twice as likely to be unemployed as white people. There's racism. And again, that's not convincing. And people are right to step away from that. That doesn't prove that racism is the problem. They're doing the right thing by being skeptical. So if you are one of those people, you get no criticism from me for those two positions. I think what's much harder for people to ignore is, is properly explained research, which happens too rarely. People don't do that very much. And I have had people challenge me and say, you can't prove that racism happens. And then I say, well, let's make a prediction. There is a great experiment in which they wrote people's names and envelopes and they put the postage already, they put the stamp on it and everything and they left it on the floor. And so it would take you two seconds to pick it up and put it in a mailbox or it can be mailed off somewhere. It's such a nice thing to do. It takes no effort. But if you write a white sounding name on the envelope or a black sounding name on the envelope, do you get different results? And I have never met a person who says racism doesn't exist, who is willing to make a prediction in that case. Or if they are making a prediction, and then I show them, well, this experiment has been done. Look, the white names get way more posted envelopes than the black names. They don't know what to do. It kind of breaks them a bit. Because beliefs, beliefs are prediction making machines. That's why we have a belief. I believe that cars will hit you if you step in the middle of the road. So I don't do it. But if I step in a road and no car ever hits me, I have to change my belief. I think arsenic is poisonous, but if I eat it and I don't die, I change my belief. And because beliefs are prediction making machines, if you can get these people to repeatedly make predictions, what do you think is going to happen with These sets of CVs that are completely identical? What do you think is going to happen with these envelopes? What do you think is going to happen with this evidence as presented to a jury? And if they keep making the wrong prediction, eventually their belief has to break. Whether they admit it or not. They have to acknowledge that their belief isn't predicting reality and they have to change it.

[Sam Cedar]

That's fascinating. I'm going to deploy that envelope, I guess scenario. I have a feeling many, many times in the years to come Dr. Keon west, the author of the Science of Racism. Everything you need to know but probably don't yet. We'll put a link to that book at Majority FM and in the podcast and YouTube description. Thanks so much for your time today, really appreciate it.

[Dr. Keon West]

Great, thank you. I appreciate it.

[Emma Vigland]

Thanks so much.

[Sam Cedar]

All right folks, we will head into the fun half of the program and wherein we will read some IMs. Maybe we will, maybe we will take some phone calls, but probably we'll see.

[Emma Vigland]

We've got a lot to get to. We've got to go through your.

[Sam Cedar]

We got a lot. Oh, yeah, we'll go through some of that. That. Folks, just a reminder, it's your support that makes this show possible. You can become a member. Join the Majority Report.com when you do, not only do you get the free show free of commercials, but you get the fun half and maybe future perks to be determined later. Yep. Also just coffee, co op, fair trade coffee and hot chocolate. Use your coupon code. Majority get 10% off ESPN on break. What seemingly begins to start looking like a purposeful plan to avoid the surge in the Celtics play. But we don't need to talk about that.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah, that's in your head.

[Sam Cedar]

We'll see. Oh, it's our channel's Twitch anniversary.

[Emma Vigland]

Twitchversary.

[Sam Cedar]

Poggers.

[Emma Vigland]

Poggers.

[Sam Cedar]

Matt. Folks, we are 12, 500 short of 100k on Twitch. So if you are not subscribed, it.

[Dr. Keon West]

Doesn'T cost anything to follow us.

[Sam Cedar]

Go follow us on Twitch. Yes. Let's get a hype train going. Yeah, don't have one quite yet, but I feel it coming. I can already tell. Matt. Left reckoning. Yeah, Tomorrow night. Left reckoning. Actually, yesterday, patreon.com left reckoning. We had Owen Higgins on talking about his book owned about both journalists owned by venture capitalists and the venture capitalists who own them. Check that out. And then tomorrow, Carl Bayer talking about topical stuff and Terrence Array of the trio, Billy is talking about about the invention of blue and red America and why it's not a good frame to think about.

[Dr. Keon West]

So check that out.

[Sam Cedar]

Patreon.com left reckoning, quick break. See you in the fun half.

[Dr. Keon West]

You are in for it.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, folks, 646-257-3920. See you in the fun half. Are you ready? Who sent us this?

[Dr. Keon West]

Alpha males are back, back, back, back, back Boy is back and the alpha.

[Sam Cedar]

Males are back, back Just as delicious as you could imagine the alpha males.

[Dr. Keon West]

Are back, back, back, back, back, Boy, back And the alpha males are back, back, back, back Just want man. Alpha males are back, back I take all of it to my. Alpha males are back, back, back, back Snowflake says what? The alpha males are back.

[Sam Cedar]

You are a madman.

[Dr. Keon West]

And the alpha males are back, back. Oh, no. Sam Cedar.

[Sam Cedar]

What a wow.

[Dr. Keon West]

What a nightmare.

[Sam Cedar]

Nightmare. Yeah, Or a couple of them. Just put them in rotation. DJ dinner.

[Dr. Keon West]

Well, the problem with those is they're.

[Sam Cedar]

Like 45 seconds long, so I don't.

[Dr. Keon West]

Know if they're enough of a break.

[Sam Cedar]

That's nonsense.

[Dr. Keon West]

See, white people doing drugs. They look worse than normal white people.

[Sam Cedar]

And all white people look disgusting.

[Dr. Keon West]

And the alpha males psych them them. Snowflake says, what?

[Sam Cedar]

What?

[Dr. Keon West]

What? What?

[Sam Cedar]

What?

[Dr. Keon West]

What? What?

[Sam Cedar]

What?

[Dr. Keon West]

What?

[Sam Cedar]

What?

[Dr. Keon West]

What?

[Sam Cedar]

What?

[Dr. Keon West]

What? What? What? What?

[Sam Cedar]

What?

[Dr. Keon West]

What?

[Sam Cedar]

What? What? What, what? What?

[Dr. Keon West]

A hell of a lot of bank. Hell of a lot of bank. A hell of a lot of bank. Okay, I'm making stupid money. Hell of a lot of bank. A hell of a.

[Sam Cedar]

All lives matter. Have you tried doing an impression on a college campus? I think that there's no reason why.

[Dr. Keon West]

Reasonable people across the divide can't all agree with this. Psych. And the alpha males are back, back, back, back, back, back and the Africans are black, black, black, black, black, African and the alpha males are black, black, black, black, black, black and the Africans back, back, back, back when you see Donald Trump out there, doesn't a little part of you think that America deserves to be taken over by jihadists? Keeping it 100.

[Sam Cedar]

Can't knock the hustle. Come on. On them things I do for the bigger game plan.

[Dr. Keon West]

By the way, it's my birthday.

[Sam Cedar]

My birthday. Happy birthday to me, Jew boy.

[Dr. Keon West]

I have a thought experiment for you. And the alpha males are back, back. Africans are black, black. Alpha males are black, black Africans are back, back.

[Sam Cedar]

Come on, come on, come on.

[Dr. Keon West]

Someone needs to pay the price for blasphemy around here.

[Sam Cedar]

I am a total question.