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handmade34

(22,755 posts)
Mon Dec 1, 2014, 08:14 AM Dec 2014

"What?Me?Racist?"

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/science-of-racism-prejudicegood read!

The process of categorizing the world obviously includes identifying the group or groups to which you belong. And that's where the next psychological factor underpinning prejudice emerges. Much research has found that humans are tribal creatures, showing strong bias against those we perceive as different from us and favoritism toward those we perceive as similar.



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"What?Me?Racist?" (Original Post) handmade34 Dec 2014 OP
Kick.... daleanime Dec 2014 #1
Very in depth article. wcast Dec 2014 #2
I agree handmade34 Dec 2014 #4
I thought this was going to be about Joe Scarborough. Erich Bloodaxe BSN Dec 2014 #3
Wow! marym625 Dec 2014 #6
Thom Hartmann played it this morning. I didn't watch morning joke, but now I really never will. Dont call me Shirley Dec 2014 #11
Shirley, you jest! marym625 Dec 2014 #12
Surely you weren't really dying... Dont call me Shirley Dec 2014 #13
K&R! marym625 Dec 2014 #5
here is a link to the test tk2kewl Dec 2014 #7
thanks handmade34 Dec 2014 #9
I tried the test. Xyzse Dec 2014 #8
There *may* be a little truth here.....but do take this with a HUGE grain of salt. AverageJoe90 Dec 2014 #10

wcast

(595 posts)
2. Very in depth article.
Mon Dec 1, 2014, 09:41 AM
Dec 2014

Highlights how societal norms can impact a person's biases and perceptions. It also shows how a little education can make a substantial difference in how we view others not like ourselves.

Erich Bloodaxe BSN

(14,733 posts)
3. I thought this was going to be about Joe Scarborough.
Mon Dec 1, 2014, 10:04 AM
Dec 2014

Who had an 'I'm not racist, but...' screed this morning, doing the old 'this isn't about black or white, it's about 'thugs', routine, and comparing Michael Brown to George Zimmerman. He also said the nutjobs on the right idolized Zimmerman and those on the left were 'making a hero' out of Brown, and 'basing their movement on a lie'.

The whole thing was nausea inducing in the totally warped caricature he made of what those on the left are actually protesting.

Dont call me Shirley

(10,998 posts)
11. Thom Hartmann played it this morning. I didn't watch morning joke, but now I really never will.
Mon Dec 1, 2014, 06:40 PM
Dec 2014

What he said was disgusting.

I wish I knew how to post that TH clip, cause I would! And now!

marym625

(17,997 posts)
12. Shirley, you jest!
Mon Dec 1, 2014, 07:24 PM
Dec 2014

Been dying to say that to you.

I have never watched him either. No plans to in this century

Xyzse

(8,217 posts)
8. I tried the test.
Mon Dec 1, 2014, 11:47 AM
Dec 2014

It is found here:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

I got:
"Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for European American compared to African American. "

Thing though, I feel like the test was slightly off. When they do some of the categories, the last part which does the quick input I felt was a bit odd. I mean, I can understand why they do that, but when the inputing goes on a right, right or left, left button pressing, of course it gets much faster when you're pressing at the same side.

It is also done as fast as humanly possible.

However, saying that, I think it is definitely enlightening.

 

AverageJoe90

(10,745 posts)
10. There *may* be a little truth here.....but do take this with a HUGE grain of salt.
Mon Dec 1, 2014, 06:21 PM
Dec 2014
Science offers an explanation for this paradox—albeit a very uncomfortable one. An impressive body of psychological research suggests that the men who killed Brown and Martin need not have been conscious, overt racists to do what they did (though they may have been). The same goes for the crowds that flock to support the shooter each time these tragedies become public, or the birthers whose racially tinged conspiracy theories paint President Obama as a usurper. These people who voice mind-boggling opinions while swearing they're not racist at all—they make sense to science, because the paradigm for understanding prejudice has evolved. There "doesn't need to be intent, doesn't need to be desire; there could even be desire in the opposite direction," explains University of Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek, a prominent IAT researcher. "But biased results can still occur."

The IAT is the most famous demonstration of this reality, but it's just one of many similar tools. Through them, psychologists have chased prejudice back to its lair—the human brain.

We're not born with racial prejudices. We may never even have been "taught" them. Rather, explains Nosek, prejudice draws on "many of the same tools that help our minds figure out what's good and what's bad." In evolutionary terms, it's efficient to quickly classify a grizzly bear as "dangerous." The trouble comes when the brain uses similar processes to form negative views about groups of people.


Folks, be VERY careful with this stuff. The TPTB have a VERY long history of misusing science for their own dastardly ends.....and the fact that it's now being increasingly claimed that racial bias supposedly has an evolutionary base to it, reminds me very strongly of the various arguments made back in the 1920s and '30s justifying racial eugenics, and the arguments made for supposed "white" superiority.....trust me, folks, if you've done research on the era, you will see some VERY worrying parallels here.

For the record, although Dr. Nosek's research is obviously badly flawed, I do not believe he is part of a conspiracy, or anything like that(nor do I believe he's a racist, just so we're also clear on that.). But there are powerful people out there who are more than willing to take bad scientific research, even bad research done with plenty of good intentions(as this seems to have been) and pass it off as factual, if they think they can gain something from it.....after all, they've done this exact same thing with climate change "skepticism" and denial over the past 20+ years and, unfortunately, it's worked.

There is reason for concern that plenty of hardcore RW types, including out-and-out white supremacists like the American "Renaissance" folks, VDare, etc., will also use THIS to try to recruit people, especially those down-and-out people (at least of particularly rightist inclinations, anyway) with nowhere else to turn.














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