Unconscious demotions and banking while Black
Photo by Joshua Hoehne / Unsplash
Imagine you go to a branch of your bank.
You want to withdraw $12K in cash, but you're street smart and know people are getting shot in robberies - heck, you saw someone shot outside of CVS just the other day.
So you write on your deposit slip instructions that you want the transaction to be discreet.
You enter your debit card and punch in your PIN, and you stand waiting for a few minutes for the transaction to go through.
And instead? It turns out your teller has called the cops on you. And they arrive with not one, but TWO guns drawn. And pull you outside and question you in a hostile way.
Does it matter that you are a customer of that bank and entered the correct PIN for your debit card?
Does it matter that you are a world-famous movie director, creator of one of the most popular films of the last decade?
No. What matters is that you are a Black man. And you have just been the target of the most dangerous kind of "unconscious demotion" - demoting a person going around doing their everyday business to dangerous, and probable criminal.
In 2016, I wrote an article for Fast Company on a common expression of bias I named the "unconscious demotion."
In my data collection on bias, I'd heard some common threads, and pieced together what was happening.
People were making snap judgments about doctors, lawyers, software engineers, and professors. Instead of recognizing them in their professional position, they were unconsciously demoting them. Usually to "the help" - cleaning staff, waitstaff, secretary.
Why? Because these professionals were female, people of color, visibly disabled, or some combination of the three.
Even contextual cues didn’t seem to be matter. You could be wearing a doctor’s coat, holding a medical implement, standing in a hospital room, and performing an exam on a patient. And, because you’re a Black woman, still be mistaken for an orderly or a relative of the patient. Being Black and female overrode the contextual cues and led to the snap judgment and unconscious demotion.
In more recent talks and workshops, I've added an unconscious demotion that happens outside of the workplace - assuming that someone is dangerous or a criminal. In the US, the people targeted by this unconscious demotion are usually Black, Indigenous, and Latine men.
In particular, Black men going about their business have cops called on them. Or just get shot by the police.
Yesterday, Ryan Coogler had cops called on him by a bank teller and bank manager. Instead of them going through the SOP for validating someone's identity when they are making a large withdrawal.
People are making a big deal about the fact that the teller was Black. But anyone can have biased mental models that are the foundation for biased snap judgments.
Look at the contextual cues that got ignored. A debit card, a valid PIN, waiting patiently for cash to be delivered. All of these cues point to bank customer. And not bank robber.
But bias ignores contextual cues. Snap judgments come from something deeper.
In a comment responding to this article on LinkedIn, my colleague Tara Robertson noted that she and her wife use this idea as an ongoing thought experiment:
Screenshot from Twitter
How much wealth do you need to no longer be Black? And how accomplished do you need to be?
I look to Serena Williams for the answer on this. In my last article here, I noted that Serena Williams’ accomplishments were completely forgotten about by a white male tennis reporter. And last week, the New York Times reported on Williams’ venture capital fund and not only did not use her name in the headline, they also used a photo of her sister Venus and labeled it “Serena Williams.” And, if Williams hadn’t used her force of will and knowledge of her own medical issues, she would have died as part of giving birth to her daughter. Even with all her wealth and fame, she still very nearly died.
I promise you that people are being unconsciously demoted in your organization. And have to deal with their behavior described using “inflating language” so they sound inappropriate or dangerous.
Maybe that person is you.
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