Week 12- Independent Research Notes

Article: “How Mindfulness can Defeat Racial Bias” By Rhonda Magee (Greater Good Science Center)

“Research shows that mindfulness practices help us focus, give us greater control over our emotions, and increase our capacity to think clearly and act with purpose”.
Mindfulness may be a powerful tool in minimizing racial biases.
Mindfulness and related practices show to increase focus and awareness, working to minimize racial bias.
“While the research is ongoing, studies are beginning to show that mindfulness meditation and compassion practices serve as potent aids in the work of decreasing bias”.
“When we consider these new findings along with some of the already proven benefits of mindfulness and combine them with teachings about contemporary forms of racism, the outlines of an effective set of new mindfulness-based interventions—for police, doctors, educators, and the full range of others—have already begun to emerge. I call these Mindfulness-Based ColorInsight Practices”.

“Colorblindness Vs. Mindfulness”

“...insight and analysis suggests that implicit bias may actually be heightened by the societal emphasis on colorblindness, a notion that dates at least to the Plessy v. Ferguson case in the late 19th century (Justice Harlan, dissenting), and played an important role in the civil rights movement of the mid-20th. When embraced by conservatives in the late 20th century, however, it became a basis for largely shutting down effective understanding of race and its impact in our lives”.
Despite some suggesting they are “colorblind” race often causes individuals to engage in a new, elevated form of racism, colorblind racism.

“How to Minimize Bias”

Mindfulness meets racial bias: “A decade of research indicates that mindfulness and compassion practices assist in raising awareness of our emotions and sensations in a given moment, regulating emotional responses and specifically reducing anxiety, increasing empathy and perspective-taking, and increasing overall gratitude and well-being. This all suggests that mindfulness and compassion practices may be important to creating the general conditions that support minimizing bias”
Lovingkindness Practice Study: “increased the sense of wellbeing among students and thus led to more effective learning in a classroom environment”.
10 Minute Mindfulness Study: results show that just a 10-minute mindfulness exersise resulted in less age and less race bias detected on implicit attitude test.
“And where such bias may exist, studies have shown that performance may suffer. Here again, mindfulness may assist—in this case, by supporting those vulnerable to having their performance negatively impacted by the threat of confirming a stereotype during a given exercise, providing protection against this so called “stereotype threat.” In another study, a mere five-minute practice session appeared to reverse the impact of stereotype threat and prevent lower performance when compared to what would have otherwise occurred to students facing such threats in a classroom environment”.

“Colorinsight”

Sat in a circle, group member looks directly into another’s eyes and offers a smile or soft gaze.
“In this way, we begin to live our intention of being with others respectfully and of giving everyone our attention”.

Students are paired up and are asked to look into their partner’s eyes.
The Instructor repeats various phrases, “the instructor intones a series of phrases which underscore the similarity that exists across, or in spite of, any apparent or presumed differences”.
Focus on the breathe and note any tendency to look away from your partner.
“‘Now consider that the person before you has known love. Inwardly recite the phrase ‘Just like me, this person has loved, and has been loved.’ And, ‘Just like me, this person has known pain and loss’”.
“This practices aims to dissolve the sense of social distance that may exist as part of the ‘story’ of our racialized differences.

O Vald- The Science of Happiness