From Subhuman to Human Kind: Implicit Bias, Racial Memory, and Black Males in Schools and Society

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that implicit racial bias regarding black males is a manifestation of a long trajectory of Western racial memory and anti-blackness where black males have been considered subhuman or as human kinds. The author draws from theological, scientific, and social science literature to illustrate how racial discourses have historically constructed black males as subhuman or as human kinds (Hacking, 1995). The central argument of this paper is that current practices in schools and society that engage in racial bias are tied to durable racial discourses of power that have consistently rendered black males as feared and dangerous.