Or we recognize that we all come programmed with the bias that we tend to favor people like ourselves.
For instance, when I worked at a company 10 years ago, we had some major shakeups in our department.
We had farewell lunches for three people in our department during the course of the summer 2012.
A Chinese-American woman who had been with the company for 9 years.
A black woman who had been with the company for two years.
A white intern who had been with the company for three months.
Now, guess which one of these three people that the white, middle aged General Manager re-arranged his schedule for to attend?
If you guessed the white intern, you'd be correct! (In fact, the Chinese Lady had told me several time she didn't think the manager liked her, which is why she sought employment elsewhere.)
Now, in seven years, I never heard this man say anything I considered even REMOTELY racist. But in his decisions, he showed bias towards white employees, particularly younger white employees.