Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Subliminal Racism.

The government is urging employers to use a prejudometer in order to determine how racist they are. The test is based on the Implicit Association Test produced by Harvard and supposedly determines subconsious racial prejudice. It's an interesting idea, most people demonstrate a preference for white faces in the test, in fact the results for everyone who takes the test are:

27%- Strong automatic preference for white people
27% Moderate automatic preference for white people
16%- Slight automatic preference for white people
17%- No automatic preference
6%- Slight automatic preference for black people
4%- Moderate automatic preference for black people
2%- Strong automatic preference for black people

When I took it it I scored a "Slight preference for white people", which means that at least 61% of the population have more prejudons than me. Obviously I'd hoped to to register "no preference" but my result isn't bad.

On the other hand when a liberal hand wringer who is zealous about using heavy handed measures to punish racial transgressions takes the test he discovers that he has a “strong automatic preference for European Americans compared to African Americans”.

So this is my first hypothesis; the people who are most obsessed with the idea that the general population are a simmering cauldron of racists whose prejudices need to combated by endless 'anti racism' campaigns, community outreach and all that crap are assuming that everyone in the population shares the deep felt racial prejudice that they themselves feel.

Here's my second hypothesis; the constant focus on race and racism, serves to deeped and entrench racial attitudes.

Via Obnoxio.

5 comments:

JuliaM said...

"That is why the BBC was right to sack Thatcher and ITV was right to fire Atkinson. And I, for one, feel a deep sense of gratitude that I live in a society where so many, of all colours, are prepared to take a stand. "

So, a mere handful of people (comparatively) wrote and phoned to complain, and forced their sacking, while the vast majorirty didn't even bother to respond.

No, if the same number expressed their view that, say, hanging should be brought back, or the anti-smoking law repealed, I wonder what he'd have to say about that?

Obnoxio The Clown said...

Um, wrong place for the comment, JuliaM? :o)

6%- Slight automatic preference for white people
4%- Moderate automatic preference for white people
2%- Strong automatic preference for white people


For black people, surely?

Ross said...

Julia- when the public want something people like Syed oppose, then they become a mob to be resisted.

Obo- You're quite right, this is what happens with an over reliance on cut and paste.

Anonymous said...

Quite a lot of people didn't want a 'diverse and vibrant' society - don't now and never did.
If this was not true there would be no need for diversity training , school indoctrination etc etc.

Anonymous said...

Keep posting stuff like this i really like it