Project Implicit @ Harvard--Tests for Measuring Unconscious Attitudes

I suspect the same would be true about any widespread prejudice.  A couple of authors tackle this issue in relation to women in a book I started to read called "Transforming a Rape Culture".

I wonder though - what does "confronting it" entail?  Is there a proper way to confront?  Because I can see in some instances the possibility that a confrontation may actually deepen a prejudice.  Perhaps even especially if it is a person from that class who responds.

I'd like to see if this study tackled that issue in particular in regard to race.  Or I wonder if that any any influence on the 63%.

I was reading an article about political rhetoric and inaugural addresses this morning and it reminded me of Barak Obama's speech on race which I thought did a great job overall of confronting the issue of racism.  Though it's not the same as confronting an individual, I thought the speech was a good reminder of what works.  And actually invoked similar principles to the ones you were calling on in your recent post "How do you stop a war?"  Wanted to go on and talk about some of those below, but also wanted to ask you--you mentioned that a couple of authors tackle the issue in relation to women in "Transforming a Rape Culture"--wanted to ask what they had to say.

The entire speech can be found here.

The way he started was to draw attention to shared principles in the Constitution and contrast those shared ideals with the reality of slavery at the founding of the country.  I think what's important there is that it draws everyone together with the notion of shared principles, and then the contrast with the reality of slavery doesn't make slavery a problem for African Americans, but for all Americans--the way in which our ideals were corrupted by that practice.

And then throughout, he continues to talk about racism as a systemic problem.

He uses his own story as part of the larger history and the way he talks about his story connects him across the racial divide.  That makes the history and the systemic problem less abstract--we can see the real life impact.  But it's not just an impact on one group, but on everyone.  And he continued that by talking about the systemic effect not just through his own life but in people of different races.  

And maybe the most effective part--to me anyway--was when he focussed on anger.  Again making the systemic impact much less abstract--it has these effects--not just on objective measures like poverty, but on the subjective experience--on emotions.  Then he used that actually as a way to connect--so he went from shared principles at the beginning to the shared emotion of anger in the face of the way the principles hadn't been fulfilled and how that shared emotion of anger is the emotional force (rather than the problems with the system) behind racism.

I'll excerpt that part--I really admire what he's doing here:

"But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it -- those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination.

That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations -- those young men and, increasingly, young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways.

For the men and women of Rev. Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years....

But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race.

Their experience is the immigrant experience -- as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor.

They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense.

So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time....

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle-class squeeze -- a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.

And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns -- this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding."

Then he draws people back together again with an even wider and more basic principle:

"It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well."

Heh, well there's more...but those are the highlights for me.

I agree that there's a possibility that a confrontation could deepen the prejudice.  In the reader's comments, the third one down (by "gerryfisher") I thought was a model for a good confrontation.  S/he's responding to another commentator who's asking if his/her attitude is racist.  A couple things I liked that that reader did--1) made a distinction between talking about the specific action, or language that a person was doing/using--discussing the specifics as an example of a racist attitude--vs. calling the person a racist.  To do the latter would only make the situation worse wherease the former has more of the possibility of a positive impact; 2) also admitted to racist attitudes--cutting down on the you vs. me, or us vs. them, and 3) talked about how the culture affects all of us--it'd be pretty surprising to have grown up in this culture without some racist attitudes.

This study just cited the fact that other studies have shown that confrontation can have a positive impact--I'd like to know about those other studes.

And the reader's comment also mentioned the "Understanding Difference" program at Digital--again something I'd like to know more about.

I venture the reason that some people don't speak up regard to point number 4 in the GC's article on power struggles.
And tying a couple of things together here I believe it's the reason that the law states that the notion of "special treatment" does not apply in cases of widespread bias.

The best case scenario would be that a person or persons within the class that has power would be able to stand up for the people being devaulued.  But it's not always realistic to think people in the devalued class will be protected from harm.

So I'm wondering if the law itself manages a "proper confrontation".  I suppose it's the same but on a grander scale.  There are good laws and injurious laws.

An article in the paper today talks about the burning of an African-American church that occurred immediately after the election in an area close to where I work.  The interesting thing I took away from the article was that in talking to the men who have been arrested, one specifically mentioned that the election of a black president would mean "special rights" would be given to blacks and Puerto Ricans.  The addition of Puerto Ricans is an interesting detail--it obviously doesn't have anything to do with Barak Obama's policies, or even his race.  It has to do with the demographics of the area this man is living in--it's an area that's been economically faltering for some time, and in which there is a fairly high number of people of Puerto Rican descent.  So this man from a poor working class background is seeing himself in competition for limited resources with similarly poor working class people--though from different ethnic and racial backgrounds, and is blaming his own feelings of deprivation on the people he sees as his competitors.

Church arson tied to racism

Yes--that's a good connection on the fourth point adding in the dynamic of the fact that the valued class is the one not only higher up in power but also seen as having the ability to give power/status to others--which is the dynamic underlying people identifying with the aggressor.

As far as a person from the class with power standing up for the devalued--I agree, but would also add in an important second part which is that part of standing up for the devalued is the person from the higher status admitting their own prejudice, rather than pointing the finger at others in the higher class.  Often what seems to happen is that one power struggle will overlap with another--I'm just thinking since you mentioned that study on rape culture above, the way in which class and race have played into gender power struggles such that rape and domestic violence are stigmatized as issues primarily affecting the lower classes, or where black men have been singled out.

And the law is often part of that process.

I agree these tests show something significant - and at the end have a list of questions if you disagree with the assesment that it gives if you disagree I think to try and compensate for the things you're talking about.

There were a number of these tests that really made me sad when you see the percentages of responses at the end... like the ageism one.

I came out neutral on that one - not preferring older or younger people.  Based on my memory of the numbers on that one I fit in with only 17% of the respondents.  If you skew one way or the other there are ranges given - slightly more preference for this group, moderately and strongly.  People who identified slightly with older people vs young - 4%, moderately - 2% and strongly 0.4%.

Yeah, I thought they were showing something significant, though I was thinking today about some of the problems with how they were set up and how they could be tweaked to be better. One problem for me is the words that you are supposed to associate with Good/Bad--those words weren't synonyms for Good and Bad, and they had different levels of connotation. One funny thought I had when taking the sexuality one is that one of the "good" words was "marvelous" and I had a gay male friend who used to say that he thought that word was almost intrinsically gay in our culture.

I think they should give you symbols or numbers that will stand for good/bad rather than use other words.