Is the US still pretty racist underneath it all?:
Historical representations explicitly depicting Blacks as apelike have largely disappeared in the United States, yet a mental association between Blacks and apes remains. Here, the authors demonstrate that U.S. citizens implicitly associate Blacks and apes. In a series of laboratory studies, the authors reveal how this association influences study participants' basic cognitive processes and significantly alters their judgments in criminal justice contexts. Specifically, this Black-ape association alters visual perception and attention, and it increases endorsement of violence against Black suspects. In an archival study of actual criminal cases, the authors show that news articles written about Blacks who are convicted of capital crimes are more likely to contain ape-relevant language than news articles written about White convicts. Moreover, those who are implicitly portrayed as more apelike in these articles are more likely to be executed by the state than those who are not. The authors argue that examining the subtle persistence of specific historical representations such as these may not only enhance contemporary research on dehumanization, stereotyping, and implicit processes but also highlight common forms of discrimination that previously have gone unrecognized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)
Found this via the always excellent: Eric Barker's barking up the wrong tree
- How do we meaningfully engage with people who think like this and let their views effect their behaviour ?
- How do we raise and tackle these kinds of issues in a constructive way ?
- Even if I'm willing to be offended in order to deal with and counter these views its unlikely that those that hold them will be willing to confront me with this level of argument.
- If you know anyone like this then please feel free to point them my way
- I promise I won't seek to out you, or ridicule you
- I would like to start a dialogue regarding the validity of your views
- I promise we can make the dialogue completely anonymous
- I'm not picking a fight or inviting pointless insult here
- If you legitimately hold these views I would genuinely be interested in hearing from you.