The Science of Your Racist Brain
When the audio of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling telling a female friend not to "bring black people" to his team's games hit the internet, the condemnations were immediate. It was clear to all that Sterling was a racist, and the punishment was swift: The NBA banned him for life. It was, you might say, a pretty straightforward case.
When you take a look at the emerging science of what motivates people to behave in a racist or prejudiced way, though, matters quickly grow complicated. In fact, if there's one cornerstone finding when it comes to the psychological underpinnings of prejudice, it's that out-and-out or "explicit" racistslike Sterlingare just one part of the story. Perhaps far more common are cases of so-called "implicit" prejudice, where people harbor subconscious biases, of which they may not even be aware, but that come out in controlled psychology experiments.
Much of the time, these are not the sort of people whom we would normally think of as racists. "They might say they think it's wrong to be prejudiced," explains New York University neuroscientist David Amodio, an expert on the psychology of intergroup bias. Amodio says that white participants in his studies "might write down on a questionnaire that they are positive in their attitudes towards black people
but when you give them a behavioral measure, of how they respond to pictures of black people, compared with white people, that's when we start to see the effects come out." You can listen to our interview with Amodio on the Inquiring Minds podcast below:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/inquiring-minds-david-amodio-your-brain-on-racism
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But the Supremo Court said there is no racism
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Yes, it may be true that implicity unconscious biases MAY exist in some people.....but they are far from prevalent, and unfortunately, there is quite often an agenda behind much of this type of research, many times of a right-wing bent. Just thought I'd warn you.
pbmus
(12,422 posts)but thanks for the warning ... I am duly warmed ...