Abstract

This article argues for a critical intervention in the popular discourse surrounding the analysis of implicit race bias as an anti-racism strategy. Also called unconscious race bias, implicit race bias provides a corporate-friendly lens for understanding the functions and operations of racism at the individual level. Based primarily in social psychology, the study of implicit race bias relies on the assumption that our unconscious negative and positive associations with people of different races are formed through various processes of socialization and can correspond with and impact our conscious race-based interactions. Recognizing the danger of popular understandings of race which neither consider nor account for race beyond the level of the individual, this article calls for the use of critical race theory (CRT) and critical pedagogy as tools to disrupt, interrogate, and deepen implicit race bias approaches. By bringing attention to questions of race power and inequity at the institutional, structural, and systemic levels as a precursor for taking up race at the individual level, I offer that CRT and critical pedagogy are indeed necessary for those looking to critically engage teaching and learning concerning implicit race bias. The article concludes by describing a recent study with Canadian teachers which attempts to bring critical perspectives and practices into dialogue with implicit race bias.