Questioning “Implicit Bias”and “Microaggressions”: Toward Better Terminology and Concepts

This chapter explores significant issues surrounding the problematical terms and concepts and discusses some reasons for their popularity in much diversity training in higher education. Chester Pierce found the most daunting task for victims of racism is to defend against cumulative proracist microaggressions; he foregrounded the great time and energy that must be devoted to this usually quite difficult task. The chapter highlights the importance of a broader and deeper explanatory framework for understanding the ways that a historically racist and sexist social system has been implemented and replicated across the United States, and especially within higher education. A large part of the appeal of implicit bias in diversity education programs is the simplicity of explanation it offers for individual racism and the lack of blame it offers for discriminatory behaviors that are viewed as arising from a supposed lack of intent and the unconscious mind.