Discrimination by default

Just as software often runs on preset options that people rarely question, many of us fall into biased habits without noticing. Those habits can settle into the normal way things work, so unequal results come to seem expected and acceptable. The police shooting of Amadou Diallo, gaps in the quality of medical treatment across racial lines, the concentration of white men in certain professions, and uneven news coverage of crimes that depends on the race and class of the victim may all be examples of this kind of routine bias.

The author argues that most discrimination today arises from unexamined assumptions rather than deliberate hostility. For that reason, laws aimed only at people who act out of malice cannot address the bulk of modern discrimination. Drawing on social psychology, she identifies three ways unconscious assumptions produce unequal treatment and traces how these play out in ordinary situations.

She then shows how these forces combine in medical care, where they create a hidden cycle in which racial disparities predict and reproduce themselves. The book closes by considering how institutions and individuals can notice these defaults, break their hold, and change them.