Study suggests passive racism common

From the article:

In the first scenario, the white person did not comment afterwards. In the “moderate” case, the white person said, “Typical, I hate it when black people do that,” after the black person left the room. In the “extreme” case, the white person remarked, “Clumsy n****r.”

“Even using that most extreme comment didn’t lead people to be particularly upset,” said co-author Elizabeth Dunn, assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Like, seriously? Who are these people? My personal thought balloon in the “moderate” case (and probably yours too) would probably be something like “well F you too, you racist assclown!” But it gets better…

Immediately afterwards, the participants were asked to choose either the black person or the white person as a partner for an anagram test. More than half of experiencers chose the white partner — regardless of the severity of the comment that person made earlier.

I would personally regard someone who I knew only by the use of the “n-word” as a racist boor, and possibly dangerous, but apparently other people wouldn’t have that problem… *sigh*


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4 responses to “Study suggests passive racism common”

  1. odinseye2k Avatar
    odinseye2k

    You also have to be careful with popular reporting. I’m sure there are some more specific hypotheses being sussed out.

    The Implicit Bias stuff is especially interesting, not because of the sociological reality, but because of its revelation of how the brain is thought to work. The Implicit tests all assume a model that the brain actually generates several responses to a stimulus that must vie for the right to come to the surface. In this case, the gut reaction of “blacks are bad” being suppressed by “I have no reason to judge.”

  2. JerryT Avatar
    JerryT

    Think of it as a jobs program. Keeps all those PhD’s and grad students from having to work at Dunkin Donuts, at which they monumentally suck.

  3. J.M. Prince Avatar

    I blame the Canadians. Personally. And think we should invade. But just for the resources, actually.

    But the navel gazing psych story was so vital that the CBC did not even index it seemingly. It’s not in there today nor yesterday either. [CBC.ca]. Strange. But Google did pick it up right after this one at the top of the UBC list:

    [http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/media/releases/2006/mr-06-079.html]

    So yeah, we needed another Uni study to find out that “many people unconsciously harbor racist attitudes, even though they see themselves as tolerant and egalitarian”. Excuse me? We ran a recent election here that proved that in spades for much of the South. You can hear it every day live in most of the cities & towns in the state too. SSDD. Regards, JMP

  4. Zaid Avatar
    Zaid

    I read this headline today alongside the one talking about the Senate unanimously passing a resolution praising Israeli violence against Palestinians.

    I wonder if they are related?

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