Prince Harry and the question of Unconscious Bias vs Racism
If you follow this blog, you know how much I enjoy writing about pop-culture’s intersection with my work and area of research. During a recent interview with a journalist, Prince Harry who was promoting his highly anticipated memoir, Spare, was asked about racism within the British Royal Family. He responded how the allegations of racism actually came from the British press, since Meghan had never called the family racist. The journalist pressed on that during the Oprah interview of 2021, Meghan and Harry spoke about how the family had conversations around their baby’s skin tone and what he would look like when he is born. The journalist asked: “[Meghan] said there were troubling comments about Archie’s skin color. Wouldn’t you describe that as essentially racist?” Harry then responded with a no and how those comments were examples of unconscious bias, which to him is different than racism. He went on to give another example of how what happened recently to Ngozi Fulani at the palace with being repeatedly asked “where she is from” by a white aristocrat is an example of unconscious bias and that unconscious bias and racism are two different things. Not surprisingly, this distinction made by him led to a fierce online debate ultimately on this question: ‘what is racism?’
In this post I want to unpack these very important terms, their nuances, and how different people define them. A favourite professor of philosophy would often say that the biggest cause of conflict among people is how differently they define words and concepts. In this sense, how you define “racism”, “microaggression”, “unconscious bias”, “racial bias”, etc will impact your view of a situation and that’s the essential first step in any conflict transformation: “are we using the same definition of this concept?” And to dig deeper:
Why do we use different terms in different situations like “unconscious bias”, “racial bias”, and “a racist act”?
Let’s look at these terms and how they are used.
Racism in its most basic and broad definition is an ideology (a set of beliefs) of the superiority of a group of people particularly marked by their racial category and identifiers (such as skin-tone, hair, facial features) over other groups. Race itself is a socially constructed category created primarily for the purposes of subjugation, domination, and expansion of a group of people’s power over others. Some historians date the construction of race as a social category to the 15th century by Portuguese slave traders, which spread across Western European powers quickly during the colonization of the Americas first by the Spanish, then by the British, French and the Dutch. Therefore, racism as an ideology is built on racial superiority, created not out of ignorance but instead for the purpose of justifying the mistreatment and exploitation of another group.
Racial superiority always exists in tandem with the idea of racial inferiority. For a group of people to be “superior”, one needs an “Other” comparison. Various institutions, particularly governing political bodies, the Church, and the monarchies of the time used and perpetuated the idea of the racial superiority of the white race as a method to justify enslavement of people, their forced labour, the destruction of Indigenous cultures, language, and ways of living. Above all, the idea of the superiority of the white race was used as a justification for exerting power and control over people, land and culture in order to extract resources and wealth. Thus racial superiority - racism - is a system of belief that always privileges one group over the others.
“Race creates a new form of power: the power to categorize and judge, elevae and downgrade, include and exclude.”
Racism is both systemic and institutional and in fact it needs both to operate. It is systemic in the sense that it permeates every aspect of our society and creates societal inequities and disadvantages that are built in the systems dating back to the 15th century. It can exist as outright forms of exclusion and separation, such as house deeds that explicitly stated how certain groups (namely black and Jewish folks) could not own property in certain places, or as more expansive policies such as the Indian Act (1876) which to this date controls the lives of Indigenous people of Canada.
Racial hierarchy permeates every institution such as the law, education, religious organizations, health care, and the media not only through practices that have been passed down through previous generations but also through presenting itself as ‘how things should be’. It becomes a form of control of how people working and operating within these institutions are expected to behave, whom they can include and whom they must exclude in order to be successful, productive and ‘keep things the way they were’.
In today's climate, one of the biggest problems in talking about racism arises when people apply the broadest definition of racism (as a superiority of one race over another) to themselves and their loved ones, most people’s response to that is “I’m not racist.”
Or “we are not a racist family” as Prince William said during an event when the journalist caught him off guard after Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah. This is because most people that we interact with day-to-day do not believe that one group of people are biologically superior and must ‘rule the Earth’, and most find that reprehensible. And in this sense they do not apply the concept of ‘racist’ to themselves or their loved ones.
AND racism is very much part of the fabric that made both Canada and the United States. We cannot talk about countries such as Canada, the US, and Australia without talking about the history of slave-trade and colonialism of Western European power and the desire of some to return these countries to what they consider to be a “glorious past”. This tension of wanting to talk about racism as the reality of our communities and the shame of being named that which most people considered reprehensible - a racist -, is a palpable one in most progressive communities.
However, regardless of the name we give it, most if not ALL people (including those of us who work hard to be anti-racist) have racial biases by the very fact that we exist in a society that was built out of the superiority of one race: white-supermacy. Racial bias is a concept often defined as a constellation of associations, stereotypes, prejudicial thoughts and behaviours that are ingrained in people over 500 years of propaganda. Such biases can often be unconscious, hence the term “unconscious bias”, done unintentionally and without ‘meaning to harm’ and yet they result in enormous harm. In fact racial unconscious bias can be as harmful as intentional acts of racism. Unconscious racial bias is in fact one of the many tentacles of racism.
In this sense, if some of these concepts stem from the same category and if definitions can change over time, the bigger question here is what purpose do different terms serve?
Racial bias or the more downgraded term of unconscious bias is a term used to normalize the phenomena experienced by almost all human beings in order to address the insidious work of racism. And this is partially because the term “racist” has become ubiquitous with the most morally corrupt and a flawed character and those who are labeled as racist become and feel socially disgraced, shamed, and at times ‘cancelled’ and kicked out of certain groups and communities of people. This is why most people’s reaction to the label of racist is an enormous defensiveness because no one wants to believe that they’re morally corrupt' and have a flawed character. At times using the terms such as racial bias or unconscious bias becomes an easier way to talk about racism and its effects because people are more willing and ready to listen and learn if we talk about it as a bias they have as opposed to who they are. You might call this the very definition of white fragility and you might be right about the fragility of it, but I’m not sure about the white part, since as I’ve argued here the label of “racist” is a shame-inducing and fear-provoking label that affects all people who do not consciously and out-rightly believe in a superiority of one race above all.
Speaking to a British audience then, in order to keep the channel of conversations around race open, it’s possible that Prince Harry chose a term that might be easier to digest and easier to start a conversation around. On the other hand, it also may be that he is unwilling to accept (or unable to publicly express) that his family’s gilded wealth derives in no small part from the profit gained through the stolen labour of enslaved people. Perhaps both.
One of the most important things around courageous conversations on racial and gendered microaggressions is to know your purpose. What do you want to achieve from this conversation? Do you want to ‘call-out’ a behaviour or ‘call-in’ the behaviour? Do you want to persuade someone to change their behaviours or do you want to simply state what they did was wrong, without hope for the relationship? Depending on your purpose the method of communication, the language, the tone, and the words that you use will change.
But let’s go back to these messy terms.
Definitions matter since they allow us to speak clearly about an issue or a situation and name something as what it is. Definitions matter because they give linguistic power to those who use them to argue a point. Definitions matter because without defining your terms clearly, and not understanding how the other person defines those very same terms often causes difficult conversations to fail just as they begin.
However, regardless of what we call these actions, the ultimate litmus test of what something is must begin with the focus on the person who was harmed as a result of such behaviour.
Acts of racism, unconscious bias and/or racial bias result in both literal and metaphorical exclusion of people. Being asked repeatedly by a white woman in the position of power ‘where are you really from?’ (what happened to Ngozi Fulani) resulted in harm no matter how we define that act. The question of ‘where are you from?’ might not have any intentions to exclude and separate out a person, but it does that regardless of those intentions. It highlights a difference, a separation, and thus marks a lack of belonging to a particular community. Good intentions do matter, but what matters more than good intentions are the impact of our actions.
When someone is harmed we must address the harm, no matter what the intentions. Language and behaviour that comes out of oppressive practices of exclusion result in people feeling ‘less than’, not valued for what they do and instead judged for the geographical location they were born in (or their ancestors), and singled out. By addressing the harm that a situation has caused, we’re repairing the rupture that harm created not only directly in the person but also in the broader community. Focusing on the harm allows for focus on creative and concrete solutions to ensure the harm doesn’t happen again. Focusing on the harm is about restoring the sense of community. Does it matter what was going on in someone’s “heart of hearts” when they say or do something?, yes, but we do a disservice to all if noticing that comes at the cost of addressing the heartbreak our words and actions can cause.
