The historic inflection point America is experiencing now on racism has sparked a national conversation. From the dinner table, to the boardroom, to the halls of Congress, Americans are engaging each other on the topic of racism at a level not seen in decades. As part of my forthcoming book on race in America, I have developed a model to help analyze racism, better explain its various degrees, and assist in combating it. The model is especially useful as we grapple with our current racial reckoning. I say this because, unfortunately, many are experiencing conversations on racism that quickly turn heated and sometimes even result in conflict. Sadly, the discord is often between people who actually agree on the fundamentals of the issue but end up talking past each other when explaining their points of view. 

One of the most notable exchanges of this kind was between a Senator from my state, John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, and Vanita Gupta, President of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and a former senior Department of Justice official. During a senate hearing on police reform, Cornyn was struggling with the concept of systemic racism as it applies to police and America in general. Cornyn asked Gupta, "Do you believe that, basically, all Americans are racist?" Gupta responded, “We all have implicit bias and racial bias, yes I do.” Cornyn replied in shocking surprise, simply by saying, "Wow." Gupta had tried to explain the nuances of systemic or institutional racism given America’s history and added, “I think we are an amazing country that strives to be better every day. That’s why I went into government, to make a more perfect union,” but the damage was done. Cornyn was completely turned off by her response and essentially said so.ⁱ Cornyn was later vilified by pundits and politicians alike for denying systemic racism exists.ⁱⁱ

 The issue here, I believe, is not that Cornyn was denying racism’s existence today. Cornyn himself, like many good-hearted Americans, would not be considered racist by the common understanding of the word which conjures up images of the Ku Klux Kan or Nazis. The issue rather, is racism spans a broad spectrum that varies in degree. The KKK and Nazis are indeed on the far side, most extreme end of the spectrum. But on the opposite end exists a type of racial ignorance that includes factors like how our brain works and the subconscious conditioning our minds have been subjected to as Americans in terms of race. In this country, all of us have been, and continue to be, influenced by stimuli that have conditioned some sort of racial bias in our subconscious. Without proper understanding, the conditioning can subconsciously influence how we feel about others, as well as the choices we make, along racial lines even if we don’t intend it.

The problem is however, these concepts are extremely nuanced and complex and can leave many, like Senator Cornyn, shaking their heads in disbelief. Thus, we need a model. I call it the Racism Spectrum™. Let me start with a few caveats. First, although I have applied dictionary definitions of words like bigotry and prejudice, to include how they differ in severity, the importance of the model is the overall concept of varying degrees of racism regardless how we might label them. Second, the model is built on our knowledge of existing research on racial bias, so by definition it is a fluid construct. The overall concept will remain unchanged, and the Racism Spectrum is a solid model for today’s conversation, but its parts, names, and varying degrees may adapt as research enhances our understanding. Finally, the model is meant to describe people, specifically their thoughts and actions, but it can be extrapolated to other entities, groups, or facets of society.

To begin, the Racism Spectrum borrows from legal and medical concepts in its formulation. Most importantly, from medical science, the Autism spectrum was used to help the model move the conversation on racism past the “them vs. us” or accusatory tone that stifles effective dialogue as in the Cornyn-Gupta case. The medical community now puts more of the atypical neurological conditions on the autism spectrum. Conditions like Asperger’s, formerly considered separate from autism, are now on the autism spectrum.ⁱⁱⁱ For the Racism Spectrum, I take it one step further. When it comes to race, we are all on the Racism Spectrum for one reason or another, no matter our race or ethnicity. This moves us beyond the debate about the generic racist label, since we are all on the spectrum. This issue now becomes where we are on the spectrum and how to deal with it.

The graphic of the Racism Spectrum starts on the far left. As we move to the right, the spectrum describes increasingly higher degrees of racism and higher levels of consciousness about our bias. Also, the mindsets or actions the model describes increase in severity. Along the way, certain thresholds or “lines” are crossed to denote key transitions in each area or quadrant. 

 The 1st Quadrant is defined by our difficulty in countering how our mind works and the way it subconsciously shapes our views on race. In this quadrant, there is no ill intent in our heart, but we are unware of what our mind is doing in terms of race.    

• • - Neurological Mechanics. Our brain works to make life simpler, and in doing so it will categorize entities we encounter to help us quickly process our interactions. In a class for military Colonels, for example, guest lectures would often call me by the name of the other Black Colonel in the class despite our names being clearly written on the oversized name cards on our desks and emblazoned on our uniforms. We looked nothing alike, but the guests would attempt to develop rapport by calling students by our names. Somewhat like a computer, their brains would try to assist by categorizing us. Their mind would pair being Black with one of two names. Like software however, not programmed with a verification step, they would often move too quickly in the rapid pace of conversation and blurt out the name of the other Black person when calling on the two of us. I have been guilty of this at work where we only have two women on our staff. I have learned however, to overcome the mechanics of the mind by making it a point to think consciously before I say Vanessa or Jackie’s names.

• • - Tone Deafness. This is evidenced when people simply lack the knowledge or complete context of the race-related issue at hand. Saints quarterback Drew Brees’ response to a question about Colin Kaepernick-style protests (kneeling during the National Anthem) is a good example. Obviously Brees’ comments were far from hate speech, and he has the absolute right to criticize those who kneel during the anthem. But when Brees said part of his reasoning for standing during the Anthem was that he had friends and family who put their lives on the line for America in military service, he was tone deaf. He did not think about those kneeling and their friends and family who not only risked life and limb to defend our country but then had to come home to the ravages of Jim Crow. Brees did not give enough mindful consideration to the fact that service men and women, like myself, fought to protect the very right of Americans to peacefully protest even if we disagree with the form of the protest itself. It’s fine to disagree with kneeling during the Anthem, but our critique must be mindful of the larger context which gives Americans the absolute right to do so.

• • - Conditioned Bias. This is the most important part of the spectrum. It has the greatest impact on our actions without us even knowing it, and it gets to the heart of the Cornyn-Gupta exchange. The history of America and race started with hundreds of years of racial minorities being subjected to second class citizenry. Every American that has ever lived has been bombarded with societal norms, laws, and imagery of Blacks, for example, being cast as “less than.” From slavery to Jim Crow, to modern day television and film, Blacks have been constantly portrayed as nothing more than criminals, drug addicts, pimps, prostitutes, and the uneducated vassals of our society. All of us have been subjected to a constant barrage of negativity about Blacks. The result has been a subconscious conditioning that Blacks are violent “thugs” who are not smart and less than the average White person. Sharks are a good analogy. They typically try to avoid humans, but we have developed an irrational fear of sharks because of movies like Jaws and others that have instilled a fear that is not commensurate with a shark’s true nature. Kenneth and Mamie Clark, two psychologists, conducted one of the most notable racial conditioning tests during the 1940s. In the experiment, Black children had to explain which of two dolls they preferred. The dolls were exactly the same, no clothing, except one was Black the other White. Again, these were Black children, but the majority of them not only chose the White dolls, but when asked, they attributed words like “ugly” and “bad” to the Black doll.^iv The same test has been repeated several times since, and the results are the same. The Implicit Association Test or “IAT” is a more modern version of the doll test with recent results showing 70% of Whites and 50% of Blacks having a racial bias against African Americans.^v
    The data was personally confirmed to me years ago when, unprompted, my own daughter told me she preferred White dolls after I had given her an African American doll as a gift. For her entire life, she had been assaulted with images of beauty that were all White, so “whiteness” became her standard of what a pretty doll looked like. Fortunately, our concerted efforts, beginning with those Black dolls, to expose our children to the true definition of beauty, one that includes the full range of diverse images, paid off. Today, all our young adult daughters not only understand what beauty really looks like, they also exemplify it. But this type of bias has been planted in all our minds and is often called implicit bias, but I prefer the term conditioned bias, because it speaks to the active conditioning that creates the bias in our brains. Once it’s there, it can subconsciously shape our actions. In another bias test, White college students who genuinely felt they were not racially biased, chose to do the academic part of the experiment themselves and assigned the pop culture questions to their partners who they had not met yet, but who had names like Jamal Washington and Karim Jackson. For this test and the others, the only thing at stake were dolls and pride. But from hiring practices to policing, conditioned bias is the invisible hand on the Racism Spectrum that has major life consequences and can even be deadly.^vi
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 People leave the 1st Quadrant on the spectrum and enter the second when they cross the Line of Awareness and begin to consciously adopt and internalize increasingly prejudiced views. This can range from being exposed to racial stereotypes without internally questioning their validity, to a higher level of prejudice referred to as bigotry. Although we start to internalize increasingly more prejudiced views as we move from left to right in the 2nd Quadrant, we are not vocalizing or consciously taking actions based on these views.

Once we cross the Line of Passivity however, and move to the 3rd Quadrant, we go public with our bigotry and actively express our feelings. In the most extreme cases in this quadrant, we take actions like discriminatory hiring practices that would be punishable in a civil court of law. Crossing the Line of Criminality puts us in the most extreme part of the spectrum, the 4th Quadrant, where our conscious actions grow more criminal, even to the point of deadly intent.

Once we understand the model, we can use it in a variety of ways. Experiments can be developed, and we can assess a group of people at a company or police unit for example. We can then apply bell-shaped population curves on top of the spectrum to depict how beliefs are distributed in that group. Changes could be monitored over time to assess the effectiveness of initiatives to tackle bias.

Most importantly, we can use the Racism Spectrum to guide how we react to people who fall on its various parts. People in the 4th Quadrant, in my opinion, should be treated like Al Qaeda, but from a law enforcement perspective. Put simply, just like dozens of national intelligence and military units keep constant tabs on terrorist groups overseas, domestic law enforcement needs an army of officers and agents watching groups in the 4th Quadrant, and they should remain ready to arrest and prosecute when the evidence warrants.

People in the extreme right end of the 2nd Quadrant (Ingrained Bigotry) and further to the right into the 3rd Quadrant, need to be marginalized and made to feel unwelcome in our society. Finally, we need to stop treating those in the first two quadrants, especially those before the line of awareness and slightly to its right, like they are Hitler. People in this area have not yet fully internalized their prejudice, so our focus should be on patiently engaging and educating them on the nature of their prejudice. This will be difficult and frustrating because many of us in this quadrant don’t see ourselves as needing to be educated, and those who will try to educate us will feel like we should already understand our own bias, but we don’t.

So, turning back to Cornyn and Gupta, with the Racism Spectrum as their guide, their conversation may have turned out like this (the following is a notional exchange and not the actual dialogue that occurred).

Cornyn: “Do you believe that, basically, all Americans are racist?"
Gupta: “Senator I want to be clear about this, so please look at this model called the Racism Spectrum. Although everyone is on the spectrum, our population has evolved over time and most Americans are in the first and second quadrants, and you can see how that differs from being in the third and fourth. So that’s the good news. The problem is, even the good people in the 1st Quadrant who, outside of this model, we would not call racist, are on the Racism Spectrum. Their actions can be guided, often subconsciously, by their conditioned views on race. The consequences of this can be deadly, so we need to fix it.”
Cornyn: “Wow. I’m not sure I completely agree, but you’ve given me something to think about.”

• ⁱ User Clip: Vanita Gupta. (2020, June 16). Retrieved July 17, 2020, from https://www.cspan.org/video/?c4887299%2Fuser-clip-vanita-gupta
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• ⁱⁱ Scott, E. (2020, June 17). Analysis | Sen. John Cornyn's distorted interpretation of 'systemic racism' displayed what a lot of Americans don't get about it. Retrieved July 17, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/17/sen-john-cornyns-distorted-interpretation-systemic- racism-displayed-what-lot-americans-dont-get-about-it/; Livingston, A. (2020, June 17). U.S. Sen. John Cornyn faces outcry from Democrats after questioning idea of systemic racism. Retrieved July 17, 2020, from https://www.texastribune.org/2020/06/17/john- cornyn-systemic-racism/
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• ⁱⁱⁱ DSM–5 and Diagnoses for Children. (2013). Retrieved July 17, 2020, from https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm/educational-resources/dsm-5-fact-sheets
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• ^iv Beschloss, M. (2014, May 06). How an Experiment with Dolls Helped Lead to School Integration. Retrieved July 17, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/upshot/how-an-experiment-with- dolls-helped-lead-to-school-integration.html
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• ^v Staff, T. (2018, September 19). The Doll Test for Racial Self-Hate: Did It Ever Make Sense? Retrieved July 17, 2020, from https://www.theroot.com/the-doll-test-for-racial-self-hate-did-it-ever-make-se- 1790875716
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• ^vi Ibid