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102 Iowa L. Rev. 2235 (2016-2017)
Racial Anxiety

handle is hein.journals/ilr102 and id is 2281 raw text is: Racial Anxiety Rachel D. Godsil* & L. Song Richardson* ABSTRACT: Many have embraced evidence from the mind sciences that our behaviors are often influenced by our implicit biases rather than our conscious beliefs. This is one reason why implicit bias has become a staple in trainings for judges, lawyers, police officers, teachers, and health care providers. While understanding that implicit bias is important, social science research demonstrates that implicit bias alone does not fully account for the racial dynamics that undermine student achievement and trigger disproportionately harsh discipline, diminish the efficacy of health care and affect morbidity and mortality rates, trigger harsher prison sentences, result in child removal, and lead to unnecessary uses of force by police against civilians. Following the behavioral realist approach to provide the most empirically accurate understanding of human behavior, in this Essay, we introduce racial anxiety as an additional lens for understanding racial disparities of all types. In the social psychological literature, racial anxiety refers to the concerns that often arise both before and during interracial interactions. People of color experience racial anxiety when they worry that they will be subject to discriminatory treatment. White people, on the other hand, experience it when they worry that they will be perceived as racist. Racial anxiety can influence behaviors and judgments in ways that contribute to significant and unwarranted racial disparities even in the absence of both conscious and implicit racial bias. Additionally, in concert with implicit racial bias, racial anxiety can aggravate interracial dynamics in ways that create significant harm. This Essay explores how racial anxiety operates, discusses its probable Eleanor Bontecou Professor of Law, Seton Hall University School of Law. J.D., University of Michigan Law School; B.A., University of Wisconsin, Madison. ** Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law. J.D., The Yale Law School; A.B., Harvard College. The authors wish to thank Phillip Atiba Goff, Alexis McGill Johnson, john a. powell, and Linda R. Tropp for their input and Zackory Burns for excellent research assistance. Song Richardson also wishes to express gratitude to her colleagues Mario Barnes, Alex Camacho, Erwin Chemerinsky, Seth Davis, Joe DiMento, Michele Goodwin, Kaaryn Gustafson, Katie Porter, Tony Reese, Benjamin van Rooij, and Chris Whytock as well as Tracey Meares and participants in the Criminal Justice Roundtable at The Yale Law School for comments on an earlier version of this Essay. Finally, we thank the editors of the Iowa Law Review, and specifically Alyssa Carlson, Matthew Cubin, and Andrew Stanley for their work editing this Essay. 2235

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