The Science of Racism by Keon West review – evidence that speaks for itself

It was over schnitzel and mash that my friend’s Bavarian grandparents decided to call me a “black devil”, chuckling all the while. Breaded chicken has since been my madeleine, taking me back to racially charged moments I’ve not known quite how to interpret. Is it really racist if they didn’t mean to be rude? What if they have dementia? And if racism = prejudice + power, was being called a black devil while I choked down some potatoes even that big a deal, given that I felt in no way disempowered in the company of my tiny, elderly hosts?

In his succinct and bingeable book The Science of Racism, professor of social psychology Keon West begins by acknowledging that society doesn’t agree on even the most basic aspects of racism, let alone its finer points. Indeed, roughly half of Britons don’t believe minorities face more discrimination than white people in various areas of life. Yet far from being a set of hazy, unanswerable philosophical questions, many of the unknowns about racism are empirically testable, especially if researchers design clever studies.

West’s book poses a central question: “Is racism still enough of a feature in our society that it has detectable, significant effects on how people are treated and what their life outcomes are likely to be?” To answer this, he delivers a truckload of research – “specifically testable, verifiable, quantitative evidence published in peer-reviewed scientific journals” – to show how racial bias affects everything from kindergarteners’ doll preferences to getting a job, a date, or decent medical treatment. What he chooses not to rely on are individual anecdotes about funny-tinged experiences, like my Schnitzelgate.

This facts-over-feelings approach is persuasive. The Science of Racism is that rare book on a difficult topic that has the potential to bridge the divide between opposing ideologically entrenched standpoints. West writes like a person richly seasoned by many conversations with that 50% of the population – conversations that I imagine may have opened with the harbinger “I’m not racist, but”. He knows the tropes and patiently explains why the existence of Barack Obama, Rishi Sunak or your highly successful ethnic mate who claims never to have experienced racial discrimination don’t prove anything. Instead of arguing emotionally, West simply provides the receipts.

Some of the research he highlights is ingeniously executed. In one study, teachers were asked to watch footage of a group of preschoolers and spot challenging behaviour. There were, however, no naughty kids in the videos. The researchers were actually tracking the teachers’ eye movements. They found that the teachers spent the majority of the time watching the (perfectly well-behaved) black preschoolers, and in particular, little black boys. In West’s own research, he took real crime stories from the news but swapped the perpetrator’s names to either white, Christian-sounding names or Arab Muslim names to test participants’ reactions. Despite identical misdemeanours, West found that “participants rated the criminals’ behaviour as both worse and more terrorist-y when they thought the criminal was Muslim”.

Conversations about racism are difficult enough without the definitional blurring and scope-creep that has affected some of the key terms used to discuss it. Phrases such as “woke” and “white privilege” have been so misused that they have become toxic mutants of their original, meaningful selves. West attempts a semantic clean-up with “systemic racism”. If a genie were to magically cleanse every last impulse from the hearts of all people in a society, he suggests “quite a lot of racism would simply grind forward unabated”. Individual personal prejudice is not required for racist outcomes to emerge from an unfair set of rules – voter ID requirements are an example.

The notion of “unconscious bias” also receives some much-needed scrutiny. It has frequently been misunderstood and used for moral absolution, a get-out-of-jail-free card that protects “our own perceptions of innocence”. Some people think that unconscious racial bias is the dominant form of racism, whereas research has shown that explicit, conscious racism is very much alive and kicking. A study from 2000 showed that a hefty chunk of white participants across western Europe held overtly racist views, strongly agreeing that ethnic minorities in their countries were inferior to white people. In France this figure was 26% of participants; in the Netherlands 30%; in Germany 38%, and in the UK a staggering 41%.

But as West puts it, it is “hopelessly naive to split all bias into the cartoonishly overt or the entirely unconscious”. Until we have the ability to read minds, there will always be some racist behaviour that slinks away scot-free under the cloak of plausible deniability. Proving intent is extremely difficult. Yet, despite the extraordinary lengths that people go to to hide their racist actions, it is possible to catch a lot of them out with sufficiently wily research. This part of The Science of Racism is particularly fun: reading about how good studies can uncover evidence of racial bias that individuals directly experiencing it in the real world would never be able to prove

In the efflorescence of books about racism over the past few years, there have been some well-meaning but stodgy tomes. West, in contrast, has a featherlight touch. It is quite a feat to pull off a densely informative book about a horrible subject that also manages to be charismatic and funny. His final chapter offers an evidence-based approach to reducing racism – increased intergroup contact under four conditions: i) in a cooperative environment; ii) where people are of equal status; iii) in pursuit of a common goal, and iv) enjoying the support of authority. If you’re wondering how that might play out in practice, West provides some tongue-in-cheek examples. If social harmony is your goal, avoid interracial affairs and multi-ethnic paintballing; consider interracial marriage and multi-ethnic Lego-building instead. What’s not to like?

• The Science of Racism by Keon West is published by Picador (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply