Multilevel Racial Bias

Generally, Status Characteristics Theory, an extension of Expectations States Theory, explores how micro level interpersonal interactions and group process are shaped by macro-status hierarchies.  As supported by macro-level racial bias scholars, my multilevel model simply specifies how societal racial hierarchies have emerged as a result of our history of colonization, genocide, slavery, Jim Crow, and have been sustained through modern day forces such as de facto segregation and mass incarceration.  Within this historical context, at the societal level, high status groups, in this case whites, are consciously and subconsciously more culturally valued, thought to be more competent, more civilized, less violent, more deserving, and more “human” than other races. The macro level racial bias can also be thought of as systemic racism or white supremacy.   In Status Characteristics terms, these societal level “status beliefs” create cultural “schemas” – that directly influence individual, interpersonal, and small group behavior on the micro level.

Micro behaviors influenced by the macro status hierarchy may include your well intentioned white person performing micro-aggressions; a judge being more punitive of racial minorities; a police officer shooting an unarmed black male; or a hiring manager skipping over names that sound too black. All of these behaviors are shaped by societal beliefs about race.  These group and individual behaviors play out every day on the formal and informal level and reinforce the racialized hierarchy. All too often this work on racial attitudes is separated from the broader societal and historical context in which attitudes originate and are currently situated.  These micro-level attitudes and behaviors are not only allowed, but also systematically reinforced by macro level hierarchy, where these privileges have always existed.  It is less about individual bad actors and “racists” holding racial animus, and more about history, structure, and culture.

What is often missing in sociological race theory is the meso- level – how these individual attitudes, behaviors, and group processes are also situated within organizational contexts – structures. The institutional or organizational contexts also mirror the macro racial status hierarchy – causing what we know as institutional racism.  The culture of the police departments that cover up killings of black men, women and children; the schools that enforce discipline policies that track black children to the criminal justice system; the hospitals that train the physicians who give subpar treatment to racial minorities; the corporations that allocate opportunities based on an old boys’ network; and border control that separates immigrant families.  Organizations are contexts that birth, structure, and provide a comfortable home for racial inequalities, exclusion, micro-aggressions, and racialized feelings. These structures, with rules, policies, practices, and habits – both spoken and unspoken – create and reinforce group processes and attitudes. In sum, racial bias is a dynamic, cyclical, and multilevel phenomenon, but we rarely theorize about it in one integrated multilevel framework such as I do in this Article.