You may be more racist than you think, study says

CNN

A new study published Thursday in the journal Science suggests many people unconsciously harbor racist attitudes, even though they see themselves as tolerant and egalitarian.

"This study, and a lot of research in social psychology, suggests that there are still really a lot of negative associations with blacks," said Kerry Kawakami, associate professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, Ontario, and lead author of the study. "People are willing to tolerate racism and not stand up against it."

The study is consistent with decades of psychology research pointing to the same thing: People are really bad at predicting their own actions in socially sensitive situations.

Read more about the Milgram study

Take the Implicit Association Test

My take on this. I agree with the study, but I have to add though, there are degrees of racism, and a lot of people fall on the mild category in this. You don't have to call them racist, it's just they have racist tendencies.

We all have our prejuidices, be they racists, sexist, whatever. I admit to having some racial prejuidices, being raised in the south, and hearing the negative racial comments all my life. However, I have struggled to overcome them, and when I catch myself having these feelings, I question myself as to why I feel the way I feel. Is it racial, or is it a legitimate complaint that needs to be adddressed?

"This study, and a lot of research in social psychology, suggests that there are still really a lot of negative associations with blacks,"

Is it just me or is this essentially saying that only non-blacks can be racist?

If this is the case then this study is BS, as anyone can be racist.

Just seems like just another attempt to heap more guilt on folks, and what bad timing to as there are many still patting themselves on the back after helping to elect a black president.

I have found that balcks, asians, and latinos are just as racists as white. If they tell you otherwise, they are lying. A very good friend of mine, a nurse I work with, and I have discussed this several times. We are honest with each other, and admit that we have racisit attitudes. Not towards each other, because we have known eatch other for 25 years. But she knows how I feel about blacks (and whites) who collect welfare and abuse this system. I know how she feels about whites who look down ther nose at her because she is black. (And, by God, when I wake up in an intensive care unit, she damned well better be the one standing over me and taking care of me, because she will see to it that I live, unless it is God's will that I cross over.)

Originally posted by times up?
Is it just me or is this essentially saying that only non-blacks can be racist?

I don't see it that way. It's simply stated that there are still lingering negative associations with black people, it's historical.

as anyone can be racist

True.

Just seems like just another attempt to heap more guilt on folks, and what bad timing to as there are many still patting themselves on the back after helping to elect a black president.

What's with the negative tone? Rather quick to assume don't you think?

Originally posted by kettlebellysmith
I have found that balcks, asians, and latinos are just as racists as white.

Perhaps what you meant is can become a racist just as europeans.

We get it:
Whites are, and will always be, racist
Non-whites are not, and will never be, racist

Really, we do.

But - in regards to this ridiculous "implicitly-racist whites" nonsense, I believe George Orwell hit the proverbial nail on the head:

Keep away from me, Smith. I’m an agent of Goldstein. I didn’t know it myself. Thoughtcrime is so insidious. It just creeps up on you. My daughter found it out. Very proud of her. Very grateful I’ve been discovered before it’s too late.

- Parsons, Winston Smith's neighbour (on being convicted of a Thoughtcrime).

But then we just rewrite it:

Keep away from me, Smith. I’m a white supremacist. I didn’t know it myself. Racism is so insidious. It just creeps up on you. My daughter found it out. Very proud of her. Very grateful I’ve been discovered before it’s too late.

Well, draw your own conclusions ladies and gentlemen.

reply to post by Jazzyguy



"What's with the negative tone? Rather quick to assume don't you think?"

I suppose cynicism is an expression of negativism, anyhoo I will give you a brief elucidation as to why the word racism brings out the cynic in me.

Racism does exist within people, but it does so much the same way that homosexuality probably does, on a sliding scale. Everyone has the potential to be racist at any moment, but what should matter is whether or not someone acts on their racist impulses. Acting on a racist impulse is an act of racism.

However pretending that white people are all closet racist and heaping guilt on them has nothing to do with racism, this has to do with thought control, and general manipulation. It is this kind of "racism" that keeps people like Al Sharpton in business, and keeps race relations in our country in shambles.This is this kind of racism that is actually prevalent in America, but this is not the racism that the article addresses.

The simple fact that this article was published just weeks after Obama was elected by 40 or so percent of the white people in this country is no accident. It is no secret that there were many people who voted for Obama as a way to soothe their white guilt ridden souls to atone for sins that they had nothing to do with. God forbid these people start to feel like they are off the hook. It is a good thing this study came along just in time to remind white folks of their latent racist attitudes. I suppose this is cynical of me, but whatever, i guess its that ole' white devil in me acting up again.

[edit on 9-1-2009 by times up?]

Let's re-rail the subject, shall we?

The study isn't part of a propaganda campaign against Europeans, racist or otherwise. I am sure the results are applicable to people of any ethnic group. I have travelled a lot, and I've found that people around the world are really pretty much the same deep down. Certainly I've found myself manifesting ethnic and other forms of prejudice on occasion, and I'm not white. And incidentally, there is a civil war in my country which looks pretty much like a race war. Neither set of contestants is anywhere close to white.

So that's out of the way. Frankly, I don't think the study goes far enough. As one of my favourite writers has written, everybody's a racist. It doesn't matter how liberal-minded you are, or how fervently you believe that we are all God's children under the sun; it doesn't matter how well you've been educated, how far you've travelled, how mixed the society in which you live, because deep inside all of us, down near the core, there's an instinct that tells us to hate and fear the Other, the one who is different from us.

Once there was a good reason for that instinct. Hunter-gatherer tribes lived by cooperation and exchange within the tribe, but when a member of one tribe encountered another, the outcome was usually murder, rape or at least robbery and mayhem. And when two tribes met, it was always war.

So it made sense to hate and fear the Other, because the Other represented danger.

To some, he still does. But the story of civilization and human advance is the story of ever larger and more heterogenous groups of people forming communities - villages, cities, principalities, states. It is the story of people learning to treat ever more people as, in effect, members of the same tribe.

So we suppress our outdated and antisocial instinctive racism, just as we suppress our instinctive lust for a beautiful member of the opposite sex who is unavailable to us, or our desire to bash our neighbour's head in and grab what's his, in the interests of a better life for us all. And the more we suppress it, the more we find out how little we need it; because, although they may have skins of different colours, speak different languages and bow down to different gods, people, all over the world, are pretty much the same deep down. There is really no Other.

If someone claims they've never been racist at least once in their lives they are lying. Deep down we are all racists. Its very sad.

reply to post by Chaoticar


Freaking brilliant post, chaoticar.