I took the Project Implicit test to see if I’m a racist. And I am.
The results of your tests are outlined below:
Your data suggests a slight automatic preference for Black people over White people
Your data suggests a strong automatic preference for John McCain over Barack Obama
Depending on the magnitude of your result, your automatic associations may be described as ‘slight’, ‘moderate’, ‘strong’, or ‘little to no preference or difference in association’. How implicit associations affect our judgments and behaviors is not well understood and may be influenced by a number of variables. As such, the score should serve as an opportunity for self-reflection, not as a definitive assessment of your implicit thoughts or feelings. This and future research will clarify the way in which implicit thinking and feelings affects our perception, judgment, and action. If you have any questions about this study or if you would like to find out the overall results, please email feedback@projectimplicit.net.
I love the explanation. Before you take the test, they ask you who you voted for, and then if you have warm or cold thoughts towards each candidate, and whether you are “strongly” for or against a candidate. So it’s a pretty keen grasp of the obvious to tell me I have a strong automatic preference for McCain. Also, that was the last of the four tests, so by then, I’d gotten really used to hitting the K or D key.
Of course, here’s where I would normally say “Some of my best friends are black,” but that would be a lie. I have one friend who is black, and all the rest are white. But everywhere I go, I relate to people as people, regardless of race. My parents taught me that when I was a child. Standing in line at the grocery, getting gas, in the mall, at work—I’m not a coward, and this isn’t a nation of cowards. Are we completely finished with racism? Of course not. But we have a black president now. I’m thinking that in itself speaks volumes about the lack of racism in America.
Except for very narrow segments of our population, I think overt racism is pretty much gone. But subconcious racism is certainly still there, and maybe alwasys will be, because we tend to prefer things we are familiar with. The fact is, whites just outnumber blacks in this country by such a wide margin, that there are lots of white people with few or no black acquaintances.
At this point, you have to ask, how to move forward? Tolerance training is already used in the goverment and most large businesses. Making it mandatory everywhere smacks of Big Brother.
WIth the sheer numbers making a level playing field difficult to imagine, I would support some kind of affirmative action that it pretty much permanent.
What I have found most interesting is that the racism that I still see in America comes predominantly from the left. The people who are trying most to stir the pot are the Sharptons and the Holders.
I was accused of racism once when my very young son looked up at a black lady and told her she had a big nose. I was talking to someone else and didn’t hear the remark or I would have chastised my son. My son was very outgoing and had a tendency to make observations about a lot of things. She went off on me telling me I was raising my son to be racist. She was literally screaming at me in a large group of people, and I had no idea what she was talking about.
Once she informed me, I told her that she was mistaken and that my son was little and from his vantage point everyone has a big nose.
That didn’t calm her down.