I don't believe in implicit bias, at least not as any phenomenon that can be redressed by legal means. It means that people are guilty of bias for a reason other than their actions or speech. Therefore you're guilty or innocent by default, by virtue of your skin color, or some other characteristic that prejudice seizes upon. White people are biased because they are white. Black people are not biased because they can't possibly be biased.
That's simple racism, and prejudice. If we are to use King's definition of racism (content of character, not any other superficiality), then that sword cuts both ways.
I used to think the same, but I've come to terms with the fact that there is implicit bias due to skin colour / facial features everywhere, all of the time.
Have you seen the comic strip
A Short Story About Privilege? It illustrates its point brilliantly, and I don't think a reasonable person can really argue that something along those lines happens every day. The race-is-in-everything argument is similar; let me attempt to illustrate through two anecdotes:
1. There is
plenty of evidence indicating that male black children are seen as less 'innocent' than their white peers. Similarly, there are studies that indicate that blacks and other minorities are not only often called upon less in school, but they're generally seen as less capable and
have lower expectations made of them than their peers. This has many quietly terrible consequences; black children are seen by teachers and their classmates as not the stars or even equals that they can be, but as drags on a team / class. They don't get asked to join prestigious non-physical extracurricular teams, or get that important TA job for a brilliant professor, or get sought out to join that promising startup while it's still being formed.
2. In the workforce, there's rather strong evidence that
your last name can advantage or disadvantage you when it comes to being hired - and also when it comes to getting a promotion. I know exactly the problem that's happening here - with a last name of Syed, I've likely lived it - the hiring manager looks at a promising resume, sees my last name or the last name of Chan, and wonders if I've got a strong accent or poor English skills that'll make me unsuitable for the job, even if my technical qualifications are strong. It's actually a pretty rational thought for that hiring manger to think: Hiring takes up their precious time, and the better you can filter out obvious duds, the better. Safer to go with candidates with the last name of James or Bundy who have pretty good qualifications as well. I've even had those thoughts myself, but thankfully I'm aware of such and can self-correct.
We're not post-racial yet. And people who make unconscious choices to discriminate most of the time aren't the racists that Hollywood shows us; they're mostly good people who are rushing through their already busy day. But could society use a bit of rebalancing to correct for our biases? I don't think it's the worst idea.