Recently, I was sitting in my Ethical Leadership, which is arguably the most open-minded class I am currently taking, and we were discussing ethos. The ethos perspective of persuasive argument focuses predominately on the credibility of the speaker, or the person making the argument. My professor, wanting to branch out from our usual lecture, had us do our own projects to represent the ethos of arguments. As I was sitting there listening to my classmates, I couldn’t help but notice that a majority of the imaginary, and real, role models they picked to be ‘credible,’ were white.
Perplexed, I typed credible into Google, only to find that the stock pictures included a white hand, the body of a white man, or white people talking. Startled, but not necessarily surprised, I started to think about my own implicit biases. I don’t bat an eye when my white straight male professors tell me facts and figures. I don’t think twice about white TV doctors on shows and commercials telling me to buy this product or another, and I couldn’t help but realize that while I might not find a colored person or a woman any less credible, I would be more surprised and impressed by their intelligence. I was being bigoted to my own gender and race.
So, when did credible come to mean: straight, white men? According to Salon magazine, white people tend to perceive lighter-skinned minorities as, “more intelligent, competent, trustworthy and reliable than their darker-skinned peers” (Holloway, 2015). This bias is called colorism, or the belief that different skin colors of the same race carry the stereotypes places upon their minority identity with varying weight. A study conducted by Lance Hannon of Villanova University, revealed a hierarchy of white hegemony, or a systemic structure administered in societal practice, which emphasizes and reinforces the ideology of white superiority linguistically, socially, and intellectually. To put it in simpler terms, media portrayal, childhood education, and decades old habits have hardwired our brains to believe white individuals have more credibility, and since women are also a minority as they struggle to get equal opportunity, white men are seen as even more trustworthy and reliable.
Another study, by Jill Viglione, Lance Hannon, and Robert DeFina, found that the perception of skin tone is even more nuanced. In fact, black women with lighter skin were given far more leniency and served less time than their darker companions. While race is certainly based predominately on ethnicity, it also falls on the spectrum of colorism. To be blunt, the whiter one is, the more trustworthy, reliable, ‘good’, and credible one is perceived to be.
Colorism and white hegemony affects nearly every aspect of life: education, job searching, job acquisition, the justice system, first impressions, relationships, etc. And credibility isn’t just reliant on skin color.
Credibility can be influenced by gender, the makeup a woman is wearing, and whether or not the person is smiling when you look at them for the first time. Additionally, credibility tends to be decided in the first half second looking at one another. Being aware of the lens one carries is an important first step towards being aware of one’s own biases and privileges, and I would argue that one can never be too self-aware.
Featured image from a SalesForce Blog.
Through The Biracial Lens 