A fallacy is a mistake of logic. One of the easiest fallacies to spot goes like this:   Chris is four years old. Chris likes to play in the mud. THEREFORE, all four year olds like to play in the mud.   This fallacy is called the fallacy of composition and is defined as the error of assuming that what is true of a member of a group is true for the group as a whole.  

The opposite argument is valid. All four year olds were three last year.   Chris is four. THEREFORE, Chris was three last year.   You can go from a true statement about the group and then conclude that the individual will also share those characteristics.

The trouble happens when you don't personally have much interaction with the group, so you conclude that the few members you know must represent the whole group.   This is commonly called prejudice—that is, when you believe you already know something about someone based on what you have learned from another member of a group. It's a problem when you use an unrelated characteristic of that person to form your conclusion.

Let's say you are a basketball fan and you watch a lot of it. You've noticed that most basketball players you respect are tall. Each time you meet a tall person, you assume they must play the game.   But this season your favorite team has a very talented high scoring 5'9" player. Do you immediately assume that every shorter person you meet now plays basketball too? Probably not, because being tall does imply more success at playing the sport.

As we look for ways to combat Racism, we need to understand how the fallacy of composition creeps into our thinking without knowing it.   In our example, the tall basketball players represent white people, and the talented shorter player represents Black people. White people, by a genetic lottery, are automatically assumed to be eligible and talented enough to do many jobs, whereas Black people are also eligible to do the same jobs, but must be especially talented to be given the chance.

This brings us to the real challenge that we are facing today. Changes in our laws, corporate policies, and educational admission practices have started to address this bias. So, you can find Black CEOs, college presidents, a US President, and people in just about every job on the way to those positions.   What then happens is the fallacy of composition:   Obama is Black. Obama was president. Therefore all Black people have the same opportunity that whites do.

Whether you liked Obama or not, you likely breathed a sigh of relief that a Black man could actually be elected. Took us a while to kick this Racism thing, but we got there…right? Because you really want it to be over, you took that single experience and applied it to the group. Fallacy of composition. As hopeful a sign as it was, it may have actually hurt our collective thinking.

Your practice today is to think about all the talented Black people you've known in high-profile positions and how you think about that. What conclusions have you drawn from that person's achievement? Did you see their path to that position as the same as their white counterparts? Did you feel comfortable that they have equal opportunities? Or did you wonder what obstacles they had to overcome to achieve that job? Would you rather not know?