In her new book, Racial Emotion at Work, Tristin Green discusses the social science regarding our emotions about race and racism and what it implies about our interactions at work. (P. 28.) This research goes beyond the more familiar research on implicit bias, cognitive biases, and automatic associations.
Green examines, for example, the anxiety white people face in interracial interactions (P. 43), and how they avoid such interactions. (P. 45.) She also examines research suggesting that Black men and women are more likely to view adverse reactions through a racial lens but are reluctant to share those experiences with others. (Pp. 38-39, 112-15.)
In so doing, Green criticizes the cultural tendency to prioritize the racial emotions of white people—in particular, the fear of being called “racist”—over the lived experience of Black men and women who experience adverse treatment. To illustrate, she turns to Title VII jurisprudence: for example, in a case where the plaintiff called a supervisor “racist in front of subordinate staff,” the court took that as enough for a legitimate non-discriminatory basis for discipline. (P. 82.)
All this is a far more fraught vision of the workplace than say, Cynthia Estlund’s Working Together (2003), which stresses the workplace as a rare forum for diverse groups to build bridges across difference. The racial emotions Green explores are, for the most part, ambivalent or negative.
However, Green argues that if courts—and employers—would at least recognize racial emotions as a part of a broader system of subordination, they would reach better outcomes. She explains: “If we understand discrimination as at least partly a problem of human interaction in the present and if, as research suggests, improving those relations will reduce discrimination and advance equality, then this is one key place to hone our thinking.” (P. 29.)
Racial Emotion does a nice job of translating social science research into the employment law context, much as Green’s prior work did for implicit bias research (e.g. Green 2003). More than 20 years ago, Green and other legal scholars, especially Linda Hamilton Krieger (e.g., Krieger 1995), made the case that courts should be more attuned to more subtle forms of discrimination driven by implicit bias. Lawyers eagerly adopted the theory and had considerable success until the US Supreme Court made it all but impossible to obtain class certification for Title VII claims relying on implicit bias (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 2011).
Green’s decision to move away from implicit bias research in this book may signal a growing ambivalence with the results produced by the prior approach. Indeed, in a 2016 book, Discrimination Laundering, Green argued that employers have misused implicit bias research to distance themselves from discriminatory practices and system. (P. 76.) There, she also hinted that the cultural diffusion of implicit bias research bred collective complacency. If we are all a little bit biased, then perhaps no one is to blame. (P. 33-34.)
Complacency, at least, seems like an emotion that can be overcome, and arguably was dislodged by the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. Contending with the more flammable racial emotions described in Green’s newest book is a more difficult challenge.
But, Green argues, it is a challenge that we must face: “We have a long history in this country of prioritizing white harmony and conflict over structural racial change. Understanding the role of racial emotion in our relations, and specifically our institutions’ approach to racial emotions, opens opportunity for structural change rather than closing it down. Remaining in silence must be the worse alternative.” (P. 149.)
