Another Dishonest Conversation on Race
Regular readers here know that in every post on race, racism, or race-relations that I insert the phrase “honest discussion on race”.
Some of those readers and maybe some new readers might wonder what I mean by that phrase.
Well, here is exactly what I DON’T mean. Below is a ridiculous article published by Reuters and picked-up by the guilty whites at the New York Times and the Boston Globe. This column appeared in my “news”paper, the Boston Globe, on January 9; it’s dishonesty is self-evident but if someone isn’t clear, shoot me a comment:
Racism study pits words vs. action
Few confronted biased remarks
Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters
CHICAGO - Most white people say they would react strongly to racism, but don't do anything when they actually witness prejudice, Canadian and US researchers said yesterday.
The researchers said in their study that white college students who heard someone make racist remarks failed to confront the person who made the remarks, and that this may be part of what perpetuates racism.
"People do not think of themselves as prejudiced, and they predict that they would be very upset by a racist act and would take action," said Kerry Kawakami, a psychology professor at York University in Toronto, whose study appears in the journal Science.
"However, we found that their responses are much more muted than they expect when they are actually faced with an overtly racist comment," Kawakami said.
For the study, the researchers evaluated 120 white students who were exposed to racism while waiting for what they thought was the real experiment to begin. A white student posing as a study participant makes a racist comment about a black participant when he briefly leaves the room. The remarks range from moderate to extreme racial slurs. When the black student returns, the participants are asked to choose partners for a subsequent exercise.
They found 63 percent of study participants chose the person who made the racist comment as a partner.
"We were all surprised at the discrepancy between what people thought they would do and what people did when they were put in that situation," John Dovidio of Yale University, who also worked on the study, said.
"They didn't shun the person who made an obvious racist remark, and in fact they showed a slight tendency at wanting to work with this person," he said.
Those who actually experienced the encounter were less distressed than those who read about or watched a video of the encounter. The latter were much more likely to say they would not work with such a person.
Ironically, Dovidio said, many other studies have found people who are confronted after making racial comments are far less likely to repeat the behavior.
"By not doing anything you are actually contributing to a society that will be racist in the future," he said. (End of ridiculous article that doesn’t let us know what percentage of black, Asian, Native American Indian, Inuit, Pacific Islander, . . . Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Taoist, Buddist, smoker, non-smoker, male, female, heterosexual, homosexual, cat-lover, dog-lover students chose to partner with the person making racist comments.)
Regular readers here know that in every post on race, racism, or race-relations that I insert the phrase “honest discussion on race”.
Some of those readers and maybe some new readers might wonder what I mean by that phrase.
Well, here is exactly what I DON’T mean. Below is a ridiculous article published by Reuters and picked-up by the guilty whites at the New York Times and the Boston Globe. This column appeared in my “news”paper, the Boston Globe, on January 9; it’s dishonesty is self-evident but if someone isn’t clear, shoot me a comment:
Racism study pits words vs. action
Few confronted biased remarks
Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters
CHICAGO - Most white people say they would react strongly to racism, but don't do anything when they actually witness prejudice, Canadian and US researchers said yesterday.
The researchers said in their study that white college students who heard someone make racist remarks failed to confront the person who made the remarks, and that this may be part of what perpetuates racism.
"People do not think of themselves as prejudiced, and they predict that they would be very upset by a racist act and would take action," said Kerry Kawakami, a psychology professor at York University in Toronto, whose study appears in the journal Science.
"However, we found that their responses are much more muted than they expect when they are actually faced with an overtly racist comment," Kawakami said.
For the study, the researchers evaluated 120 white students who were exposed to racism while waiting for what they thought was the real experiment to begin. A white student posing as a study participant makes a racist comment about a black participant when he briefly leaves the room. The remarks range from moderate to extreme racial slurs. When the black student returns, the participants are asked to choose partners for a subsequent exercise.
They found 63 percent of study participants chose the person who made the racist comment as a partner.
"We were all surprised at the discrepancy between what people thought they would do and what people did when they were put in that situation," John Dovidio of Yale University, who also worked on the study, said.
"They didn't shun the person who made an obvious racist remark, and in fact they showed a slight tendency at wanting to work with this person," he said.
Those who actually experienced the encounter were less distressed than those who read about or watched a video of the encounter. The latter were much more likely to say they would not work with such a person.
Ironically, Dovidio said, many other studies have found people who are confronted after making racial comments are far less likely to repeat the behavior.
"By not doing anything you are actually contributing to a society that will be racist in the future," he said. (End of ridiculous article that doesn’t let us know what percentage of black, Asian, Native American Indian, Inuit, Pacific Islander, . . . Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Taoist, Buddist, smoker, non-smoker, male, female, heterosexual, homosexual, cat-lover, dog-lover students chose to partner with the person making racist comments.)
posted by Zack at 7:09 PM
2 Comments:
students chose an "alpha" student not a racist. what is so hard to understand with this study?
Anonymous, Of course, how could I over look the age of the test group? Were they right-handed or left-handed? Products of single-parent households or two-parent households? Brunettes? Blondes? Red-heads? None of this mattered to the "researchers" so desperate to publish something ugly about whites and liberal extremists who control the media so eager to re-produce something ugly about whites . . . with no context whatsoever.
January 13, 9:46 pm
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