Yes, and as the grandparent comment pointed out, denying or questioning the existence of the bias is by itself treated as evidence of it. That's the vicious circle you can't win against - a non-falsifiable dogma.

Please see my sibling comment to yours. I don’t generally see this treated as a “dogma,” nor do I think it should be. It’s an important part of self-reflection.

Saying “I’m not a racist” may be treated as having failed to do that self-reflection in some camps, because usually, for most people, things are more nuanced. So a sign of having done that reflection is often an unwillingness to make such categorical statements about something as complex as our own internal motivations and feelings. I’m not sure whether or not that’s fair, but I would imagine that’s where some of that comes from.

I think this is accidental motte and bailey arguing. People are being fired/cancelled for "being racist". This is not the same "being racist" as you're now saying everyone is to some extent.

Calling two different things the same thing is always a problem, and weaponisable. Which is why people do it.

To my knowledge people generally are not saying that literally everyone has every implicit bias common in their societal groups. It’s saying that certain biases are particularly common among certain societal groups, and that it’s important to introspect your own life and consciousness to see which ones you have or don’t have. Each person has some subset of implicit biases determined by their experiences, their upbringing, and so on. The important thing about knowing and acknowledging that implicit biases are a thing is that it’s the first step towards understanding your own.

It is also important to realize that most humans are biased against admitting they’re wrong, and that it’s hard to see things you haven’t perceived before. So, it can be hard to recognize our own implicit biases without conscious and honest work. All anyone is saying is that doing that work can help to make everyone’s collective lives easier.

What's also easily weaponized is the tendency to assume that they don't have them. Observing one's own implicit bias takes work, while denying they exist is easy. Being asked to look makes you feel put-upon, and that feeling is easily turned into grievance.

So if you're on the lookout for weaponization, be sure to look around widely. None of us is immune to having our "common sense" flattered.

Introspection, reflection, and self control have been valued for millennia. It's thinking you can read someone else's mind that's new.

It's true. The constant accusations of "virtue signaling" are novel. "You don't really mean what you say; you just want people to think you believe it". It's quite annoying, but I soldier on.

I wasn't talking about accusations of virtue signalling. Being holier than thou is also a well worn path.

So it seems like you're arguing against a point that I'm not making and a perception I don't hold, so it's hard for me to engage here.

Almost (probably everyone) has biases. That is nothing new, and I would think is uncontroversial. Allowing your biases to dictate your behavior in an uncritical way can be damaging, either for yourself or others. That I also think should be uncontroversial.

People who grew up in a given culture tend to have shared biases. Some of those will be useful, some will be harmful. This is not to say they that every member of that culture shares those biases. My guess is that what you're talking about is the tendency to assume that a particular member of some culture has a bias that is common in their culture as a whole (for example, to use a US-specific example, if I assume that any Southerner I meet is biased against socialistic ideas). This is clearly not always going to be accurate, but may be an assumption made for safety's sake when you're in a vulnerable population and you know that those biases can be damaging to you (if I'm secretly a communist living in the South, it may be better to hold that in on average to avoid problems).

I think the reason these conversations may seem "targeted" at well-off white people in the current cultural context isn't because other groups don't have biases (they do!), or that every white person holds a given bias (they don't!), but because well-off white people on average hold more power, and therefore their biases are as a consequence more likely to cause harm.

And also, sure, I'm sure there are people who go overboard with all of this, but that is true of literally any position. Letting the extremists define the discourse isn't going to help anything.