Biased - Jennifer Eberhardt

This is such an enlightening book. Eberhardt, one of the world's leading experts on unconscious racial bias, examines this concept in our modern society. She incorporates discussion about racial justice, and the history of implicit racial bias and its repercussions. Eberhardt works as a consultant to law enforcement, and examines within the book some of the many problematic situations she has been faced with throughout her life, when she has not only observed and assisted cases which involved racial bias, but has also been subjected to this bias herself. The book is both factual and data-based, whilst not exclusively adopting a cold and hard-hitting style - Eberhardt remains conversational and welcomes you into the dialogue. 

The author presents both broad statistics with elements of her own studies, and reinforces the arguments she makes with examples both which she herself has experienced or experienced second-hand, and from throughout history. In this way the book gives a varied and extensive overview of implicit racial bias, as well as providing elements of specificity. Much like "Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race", the book addresses the fact that implicit bias is something which we all inherit subconsciously, and therefore cannot be individually blamed for the larger problem as its origins date back historically. Yet Eberhardt also acknowledges the fact that we do need to take responsibility for change, both in individual mindsets and in our wider society.

One passage of the book which I found fascinating was the example of a group of black teenagers in China town, who would pickpocket old Asian ladies, without wearing masks to cover their faces. They had discovered that these Asian ladies could not tell them apart after glimpsing them for a brief time, so when the boys were produced in a lineup they would not be convicted as the ladies could not confirm which boy had mugged them - the women simply thought they all looked the same. This racial bias led to older ladies fearing black men in China town, which therefore encouraged this bias to be explored across other races. Eberhardt explains that this concept can be seen across all races - we are more likely to recognise faces of those within the same racial group as us, when we have only seen them for a short instance. I found excerpts such as this really interesting, and the author's discussion gripping.

Overall, I would really recommend this book. It does read like a study, so can be pretty fact-heavy and intense in places. But as I mentioned, there are also elements of a chatty, conversational nature which break this up really well. I found the works "Ten Types of Human" and "Sapiens" slightly more accessible in terms of their conversational style, but as this book is a fairly short read I thought it was really well balanced in terms of factual substance and more personal dialogue, and ultimately very enjoyable!