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Are We More Racist Than We Think?
January 08, 2009 6:19 PM
By JOSEPH BROWNSTEIN, ABC News Medical Unit
Earlier this week, "What Would You Do?" aired a segment that examined whether people respond to overt racism, concluding that we often don't speak up when confronted with it.
Today, a new study in the journal Science shows our tolerance for racism may be even greater than we believed. The authors say that people don't respond, or even get upset, when they see racism directed at someone else.
"When they’re put in that situation, they are not upset at all, and they don’t punish or censor the racism at all," said psychologist Kerry Kawakami of York University in Toronto and one of the study's authors.
But the new study is more an indictment of the failure to stand up to racism when it would have been easy to do so.
In Kawakami's study, 120 subjects -- none of whom were black -- were randomly divided into two groups.
Half the subjects were put in a room with a black person and a white person (both actors) and told they would be doing an experiment with a partner. The black actor would leave the room, grazing the knee of the white person on his way out.
After the black actor left the room, the white actor would respond in one of three ways: He'd say either nothing, or "Typical. I hate it when black people do that," or use a racial slur.
Shortly after, a black actor would return with the researcher to begin the puzzles, and the subject was asked to choose either the black or the white partner.
The second group of subjects was presented with the same scenario, but hypothetically, and were asked how upset they would be and whom they would choose as a partner.
While the subjects presented with the hypothetical situation said they would be upset and choose the black person as a partner, those who had witnessed the actual situation did the opposite. More than 60 percent of the those who had witnessed the racist comment chose the white partner, while less than 30 percent of the subjects in the hypothetical situation said they'd do that.
It seems most won't put their foot down when confronted with racism.
"It’s not even standing up to racism, it’s not even as costly as it was on your program,” said Kawakami, referring to ABC News' "What Would You Do" segment.
While the situation set up by ABC required someone to speak up in a crowded area, the people in the study only had to speak up in a small group, or avoid a racist partner when that was all the information they had in making their choice.
And even when they were alone in a room with a racist, the people in the study said nothing.
“Nobody in our study said anything to the white person,” said Kawakami.
Additionally, Kawakami said, the people in the study who had witnessed racism apparently did not experience any distress because of it.
Many see the election of Barack Obama as a sign that racism has ended in the United States, but experiments like these signal it has not vanished entirely.
Kawakami said racism might persist partly because there is not enough said to people who make racist comments.
“Racist behavior is not censored, is not punished in our society, and that could be one reason why it’s still so prevalent,” she said.
January 8, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (7)
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Of course we are more recist then we ( want to ) think. Thinking that you are not racist is called being Politically Correct or pretending to believe something because it's socially acceptable. Prejudice of all kinds is a human characteristic in all of us. And like all human characteristics it can be positive or negative.
Legislation, however hard the government tries, cannot change human nature but rather just disguise it by reversing it.
Posted by: don | Jan 8, 2009 6:35:47 PM
I don't expect everyone to be perfect,however I would just like repect and common courtsey,not to be judged, by the color of my skin or my differences, but thru my ability to proform productively in society even if it's different from your methods!
Posted by: msg | Jan 8, 2009 7:23:20 PM
Racism is Very Much Alive in the Texas especially in The Healthcare Profession,in all Levels of Management! When addressed you're orstrasized or labeled..........
Posted by: msg | Jan 8, 2009 7:28:30 PM
I'm tired of these "unbiased" studies. I've never read a study about black on white racism, black on hispanic racism, hispanic on oriental racism, or hispanic on black racism etc. Furthermore what were the group dynamics - ages, sex, education level etc? The test group was too small to have well rounded group dynamics and come to a cohesive conclusion.
Many people are weary of being brow beat with the race card from the press and others. Everything is a race issue and the MSM exacerbates the problem deliberately, if you point the finger long enough people tire of it and ultimately end up not caring. It's the boomerang effect.
Posted by: Jay | Jan 9, 2009 3:23:21 AM
Maybe, but we are less racist than we used to be.
Posted by: Huh | Jan 13, 2009 11:37:58 AM
I never thought the man made a racial statement. To point out that a black man did something annoying is not racism. That is called, pointing out something that a Black person did that annoyed them. Using the "N" word could be racism, but then, there is a double standard for that. Blacks can use it on each other but a White cannot use it on anybody, unless he wants to get arrested or fired from a job. Now THAT is racism.
Posted by: Bill | Jan 13, 2009 11:36:56 PM
Bill, you're wrong. The point was the person said "black people." He did not say, "when people do that." There wasn't reason to say "black" at all. Since he did, it's considered racist. I'm not one to be easily offended by racison, sexism, or anything, but you have to know when someone is crossing the line, not only in what they say, but how they say it. The whole who can use the "N" word and what not is ridiculous to me. It's the same thing as with other racial slurs. Be careful who you use certain words with and where you are. Other than that, to each their own. If you want to be ignorant to the truth, so be it.
Posted by: Alex | Jan 26, 2009 6:40:00 PM
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