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Views on Racism
This article came about for an interesting reason. On March 20, 2000, the Discovery Channel
ran a show called "How Biased Are You?"
Personally I love the Discovery Channel. I often tape many shows for
future reference (The police have my permission to use this as an admission of guilt if I
am ever accused of violating copyrights.)
The main point of the show was that racism is much more ingrained into
society then we would like to admit.
This bothers me greatly and it should bother you too.
First off, let's define "racism".
My trusty Oxford
Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus (1997 Edition) defines it as
Belief in the superiority of a particular race; prejudice based on this
Antagonism toward other races.
See also: Apartheid, Bigotry.
The good folks at InfoPlease.com has a similar definition.
Let's look at this a little closer. Both available definitions describe a
feeling of superiority for a particular race. This, by definition, includes a feeling of
inferiority for all the other races. Is this a good or a bad thing?
Depends on who you ask. Those that are able to gain from the proposed
actions under a racist movement tend to think it's a good thing. Those that it hurt are
obviously against it.
Personally, I think it's a bad thing, even though I am a white male. My personal beliefs destroy any concepts of "This
race is better than that race." I believe nothing good can come from that type of
thinking.
The show also brought to light a test being done at the famous Yale
University called the Implicit Association Test.
(You can take these tests yourself online) in fact they have four different tests
analyzing your preference towards race, sexes, age, and of all things, political people. I
suggest taking these tests to see how you do.
Some of the underlying information is rather interesting. The testing done
on the show mentioned that whites who showed an unconscious preference toward whites
viewed the information as negative proof of deep lying racism while blacks who showed
preference toward blacks viewed the information as proof of their pride.
While it's not a bad thing to have pride in your heritage, this is
completely different from viewing yourself as superior, as the definition states. We must
be careful to not confuse pride with bigotry. Having and showing love for your race or
heritage does NOT have to include derogatory actions, conscious or otherwise, towards
others.
A perfect example is great sports heroes who, no matter how good they are,
always compliment other athletes on their skills and/or personality because they know that
when it comes to all that matters, there is no inventory on quality that can be hoarded.
What worries me most about racism isn't the fact that it exists, but how
people try to reason it away.
One lady (a civil rights lawyer) on the show who took the test showed a
high preference toward whites replied,
"I'm not surprised, (at my score) and I think it's because we live in
an extremely racists society where messages are given to us in many different
ways..."
Why would someone publicly try to blame "society" for
their ingrained prejudiced? We all live in the exact same world. We are exposed to many of
the same messages. Yet some are able to look at the information around and say "Hey,
just because this answer comes up most of the time doesn't mean that it's the right
answer."
And that's where the trick lies. If we grow up seeing and hearing mostly
negative remarks, we can easily assume that this is the way things "should be"
or "that's the ways things really are".
Do not fall into this trap. If everyone around you is giving you bad
information about other races, than you should use this, not as an example of what to do,
but as what NOT to do. Like they say:
"Some people's purpose in life is to serve as a good example of what
not to do."
I already took the tests just to see how I did. Here are my scores.
My IAT test for Gender-Science scored as such:
"Your Data suggest little or no automatic gender association with science or liberal
arts" (out of 24011 respondents recorded before my test, 15% scored the same as me.
69% showed slight to strong association towards male and science.)
My IAT test for Age scored as such:
"Your Data suggest a moderate automatic preference for young" (out of 29902
respondents recorded before my test, 14% scored the same as me. 83% showed slight to
strong association towards young.)
My IAT test for Race scored as such:
"Your Data suggest little or no preference" (out of 39775 respondents recorded
before my test, 12% scored the same as me. 73% showed slight to strong association towards
whites.)
My IAT test for Political Candidates scored as such:
"Your Data suggest a moderate preference toward Bradley" (I decided to play with
this test with Bradley and Buchanan, two political candidates that I know almost nothing
about.)
Does this mean that I am better that the people who showed a high
preference? Of course not. It is simply a test to let you see another side of yourself.
You can take that information and decide you are happy with it, or you can decide to
change yourself. It does take work but you can do it.
According to history, biology and science, no race, religion, age, or sex
has the monopoly on goodness, intelligence, creativity, morals or any other benchmark that
prejudice people base their beliefs on.
I am available for seminars, debates, interviews or lectures about many philosophical, ethical, scientific or religious issues. Please contact me for scheduling and prices.
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