Victims of bigotry have to contend with mental burden from several sources. On top of overt harassment and systemic oppression, they can also face stereotype threat: worrying that they will perpetuate a negative stereotype ascribed to their group makes them more likely to perform poorly. “The anxiety can be conscious, or it may be diffuse and not explicitly recognized,” write Daniel L. Schwartz, Jessica M. Tsang, and Kristen P. Blair in The ABCs of How We Learn. “In either case, it can be distracting and siphon cognitive resources, leading to poorer… performance and learning.” (p. 14)
Perpetrators of bigotry—and I’ll focus on racism here because of recent events in Charlottesville—hurt themselves as well as their victims. Devoting cognitive resources to hatred leaves less available for creative, productive pursuits. Further, racist stereotypes—for example, that visible minorities get free post-secondary education or that affirmative action programs rob deserving white students of college admissions—may lead members of the dominant group to believe the deck is stacked against them and to wonder why they should bother even trying. Finally—at the moment, anyway—there’s still some stigma attached to being an overt racist, and stigma can also be a source of mental burden that can interfere with innovation.
I don’t want to be glib and say that the easiest way to rid yourself of the stigma of being racist is to stop being racist. I recognize that “Just stop being [attribute]” is an argument hurled at truly oppressed groups, including people who use drugs and people who live in poverty, and that debiasing takes a conscious effort in addition to a willingness to change. What is clear is that whichever side of racism you’re on, from the perspective of mental burden, nobody wins.