REVIEW: The Science of Racism by Keon West

A clearly meticulously researched, well documented and carefully curated look at the science, the social elements and the story behind how racism has entered and impacted society.

You need to read this, you might not “like it” but you’ll come out knowing something new. I appreciated the deeply uncomfortable but necessary conversations about accepting and unlearning racist, prejudiced behaviours and bias, delving into how bias forms and spreads and why people might believe racist ideas.

After closing a chapter about the framing of unconscious bias, I had to take some time reassess the way I saw the world — I knew unconscious bias wasn’t a justification for anything, but taking it further, was it just an excuse to get someone out of self reflection and making amends? Does it even really exist in the way we’re taught it does?

"I'm sure it feels like we're doing something good with this discussion of unconscious bias. It is, after all, important to acknowledge our biases. However, the research shows that if all we're acknowledging is unconscious bias, then what we're really doing is protecting our own perceptions of innocence, reducing our concerns about the bias we claim to be addressing, and ensuring that nobody is ever held accountable for it. This is not what doing something good likes like. this is doing something bad."

This book covered so much without stretching it, taking a decent amount of pages with subjects from hiring bias, medical disparity, media reporting, and personal relationships.

The author created a warm, welcome space despite the tough subject — with a friendly, conversational and easily understandable tone while conveying the facts and more complicated subjects in a highly accessible style, giving us the clear cut science and then breaking it down and explaining it, and the implications it has while offering their observations in an impartial but impactful way. In one chapter, Keon poses us several scenarios to actively test our thinking and offer insight into how racism can manifest and then explains the different physiological tricks we may use ourselves to justify racist actions and thoughts.

A powerful, highly readable book. I read the whole thing in one day and have already gone back for round two.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

• I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for a review.
• The Science of Racism is available from 23/01/25 with Picador.