Obama

Intrinsic racism and the strength of our subconscious associations

Posted by Gazz

The Collins English Dictionary defines racism as:

1 the belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority over others

2 abusive or aggressive behaviour towards members of another race on the basis of such a belief

In a civilised world most people would like to think that they are not racist, and outwardly act with respect towards people of different races. Would America have elected their first black president if this was not the case? Research at Harvard university is showing that subconsciously there is a different story whether we like it or not.

Science has tended to confirm that race is a cultural construct, and there are no scientific criteria to determine race. Despite our obvious differences we are all extremely similar biologically, and to think of one race as superior to another, such as the argument that white people have intrinsically superior intelligence made by Charles Murray in ‘The Bell Curve‘, is clearly misguided. In fact in many circumstances use of the word race is being replaced with the equally ambiguous term ethnicity, as an indicator of the ancestry of a given individual.

Whether we like it or not our subconscious controls our intrinsic attitudes towards others. Without conscious influence we make snap decisions, especially about other people, using a combination of learned responses, non-verbal cues and body language. Interviews and speed dating are perfect examples of how we form an impression of people within moments of meeting them.

These behaviours are the subject of a lot of research, and an interesting tool has been developed by Anthony Greenwald, Mahzarin Banajai and Brian Nosek that shows the links our minds make. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) determines the connections and mental associations that we have made between pairs of ideas. The test works by putting two words or ideas together with words synonymous with good or bad, and registering the time taken to place an image or word into one of the two categories. Try it out for yourself here but be prepared for some uncomfortable results.

Full disclosure, I have a moderate automatic preference for Caucasians, which surprised me somewhat. I don’t consider myself to be racist, and although I don’t know many people of different ethnicities, I don’t think of the friends I have of other ethnicities any differently than the white friends I have. Intrinsically, however, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Even as I completed the test I felt a sense of shame at the ‘wrong’ answers I gave.

The prodominantly white media may have to take some of the blame for this, for reinforcing negative stereotypes about different races, with sensationalist stories, however the good news is that with more exposure to positive examples of other races or cultures this bias can be overcome. President Obama has recieved almost unilateral support with a message of hope and change, showing that the potential of any race for good is there, we just need more examples to help break free of these associations.

Tags: IAT, implicit association test, Obama, racism, science, uncomfortable truths

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 Gazz 3 Comments

Hello World!

Posted by Ado

It seemed only apt to both the general theme and target audience of this, our newly founded Blogging locale, that we start with those words.

As all geeks (well those of the IT fraternity at least) will know, the first thing anyone should do in a new programming language is to make a script that displays these words, big and proud for all the world to see. So there they are… We are here… The Stupor has landed.

Thinking of an actual subject for a first post has been somewhat trickier than coming up with the title and introduction. Where to start?? My theories on time and space or the relativity there-of, politics from one side of the spectrum to the other, a review of an album or game recently purchased, a funny video or a photo of a cat that looks like Hitler… Where to begin??…

With all these things whirling around in my head just waiting to splurge forth. I think the trick to making this work will be like trying to harness the power of a nuclear reaction, without it exploding your face/ass/county off. An amount of discipline and control will be called for, but I’m confident that me and my fellow Stupefiers can direct our minds whilst also supplying many interesting insights and hilarious anecdotes along the way.

I assume that the only people reading this now (in the year of our Lord 2008) will be you three (Gazz, Neil and Ralph) and our collected family and friends. However, I predict great things here, so for all you completists that have skipped right back to catch the very first post those guys did before they moved to Hollywood and “sold out”… Hey future yous!!! How about that weather, pretty damn hot isn’t it? Remember that credit crunch thing? We never thought that would go on so long. What a shame about Obama, it was good while it lasted. Oh and good work on avoiding that flu pandemic too.

Ever the optimist,

Ado out….

Tags: blogging, credit crunch, flu pandemic, future, geeks, hello, Kitler, Obama, optimist

Monday, October 20th, 2008 Ado 1 Comment

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