(Name-mce) ListServ We're all racists, unconsciously

[Rita Kohli]

I am not sure if whoever posted this article had an opinion about what 
it is saying, but I really have a problem with it that I don't feel can 
go unaddressed.

I do not agree that we are all racists unconsciously, I also feel 
strongly that I should not just accept Richards apology because he had 
some kind of "courage" that we do not have to share our innermost 
feelings of hatred.

What Richards said and did was an exhibition of white power.  He didn't 
like what was being done to him by an African American heckler, and he 
had the words and power to subjugate him, in a way that could never be 
done to a white man.

The test mentioned in the article, that proves that we are all 
"racist," may show that whites as well as People of Color associate 
white with good and Black with bad on an unconscious level, but we must 
acknowledge the historical reasons for why People of Color may 
demonstrate this.  Colonization, slavery, post-colonial dominance, 
education, media are all ways in which People of Color, globally, have 
been and continue to be taught to believe in a racial heirarchy where 
whites are deemed superior.  We have been forced to believe that we are 
inferior, and often carry a deep self-hate, whether consciously or not. 
  From Carter G. Woodson, to Fanon or Malcolm X, Black activists have 
been naming racism to allow African people to heal from a self-hate 
that was taught to them by their white oppressor.

I, as a South Asian woman, refuse to believe that the colonization and 
enslavement of my people had little impact on the way that we view 
whiteness, light skin, Europe.  And I also refuse to believe that the 
elements of internalized racism that I, or my community hold about 
ourselves or others, is the same as the deep-rooted hatred for African 
Americans that Richards has "unconsciously" in his heart.

The interpretation of this test in this article seems to excuse racism 
because we all allegedly have it.  There is no excuse for what was 
done, and in my opinion no way to forgive or not judge a man by what he 
said when he was drunk or angry.  I have been angry or upset many times 
in my life, and I know for a fact that nothing like that has ever come 
out of my mouth.

There is nothing that Richards could EVER say to get me to believe he 
is a decent human being.  We cannot confuse white supremacy with the 
internalization of racism imposed on non-white people in this world, we 
must not confuse hate with self-hate, and I feel it is fundamental that 
we begin to recognize these differences.

Rita Kohli
Race and Ethnic Studies in Education, UCLA

_http://www.latimes.http://wwhttp://www.latimhttp://wwhttp://www.latihttp://_ 
(http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-shermer24nov24,0,48454) 
06.story?coll=06.story?coll=<W06

We're  all racists, unconsciously
Kramer just blurted out what unfortunately comes  naturally to all of us.

By Michael Shermer

MICHAEL SHERMER is the  publisher of Skeptic magazine and a monthly
columnist for Scientific  American. His latest book is "Why Darwin Matters."

November 24,  2006

AFTER A PAROXYSM of racial viciousness at the Laugh Factory last  week,
Michael Richards, the 57-year-old comedian who played Kramer on  "Seinfeld,"
explained to David Letterman and his "Late Night" audience  Monday: "I'm not
a racist. That's what's so insane about  this."

Richards' shattered demeanor and heartfelt repentance leaves us  with what I
shall call Kramer's Conundrum: How can someone who spews racial  epithets
genuinely believe he is not a racist? The answer is to be found in  the
difference between our conscious and unconscious attitudes and our  public
and private thoughts.

Consciously and publicly, Richards is  probably not a racist. But
unconsciously and privately, he is. So am I. So  are you.

Consciously and publicly, most of us are colorblind. And most of  us, most
of the time, believe and act on that cultural requisite. You'd have  to be
insane to publicly utter racist remarks in today's society ? or  temporarily
insane, which both science and the law recognize as sometimes  being
triggered by anger.

And alcohol ? recall Mel Gibson's drunken  eruption about Jews, or the
college frat boys slurring alcohol-induced  insanities about blacks and
slavery in Sacha Baron Cohen's film  "Borat."

The insidiousness of racism is because of the fact that it  arises out of
the deep recesses of our unconscious. We may be unaware of it,  yet it lurks
there.

How do we know this? One indication is the  Implicit Association Test,
developed by Harvard scientists, which asks  subjects to pair words and
concepts. The more closely associated the words  and concepts are, the
quicker the response to them will be in the  key-pressing sorting task (try
it yourself at _https://implicit.https://implhttps://i_ 
(https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/)   ).

The race test firsts asks you to sort black and white faces into one  of two
categories: European American or African American. Easy. Next you are  asked
to sort a list of words (joy, terrible, love, agony, peace,  horrible,
wonderful, nasty, pleasure) into one of two categories: Good or  Bad. No
problem.

The next task is a little more complicated. The words  and black and white
faces appear on the screen one at a time, and you sort  them into one of
these categories: African American/Good or European  American/Bad. Again you
match the words with the concepts of good or bad, and  faces with national
origin. So the word "joy" would go into the first  category and a white face
would go into the second category. This sorting  goes noticeably slower, but
you might expect that because the combined  categories are more cognitively
complex.

Unfortunately, the final  sorting task puts the lie to that rationalization.
This time you sort the  words and faces into the categories European
American/Good or African  American/Bad. Tellingly (and distressingly)Americ
sorting process goes  much faster than the previous one. I was much quicker
to associate words like  "joy," "love" and "pleasure" with European
American/Good than I did with  African American/Good.

I consider myself about as socially liberal as you  can get, and yet on a
scale that includes "slight," "moderate" and "strong,"  the program
concluded: "Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for  European
American compared to African American." What? "The interpretation  is
described as 'automatic preference for European American' if you  responded
faster when European American faces and Good words were classified  with the
same key than when African American faces and Good words were  classified
with the same key."

But I'm not a racist. How can this be?  It turns out that this subconscious
association of good with European  Americans is true for everyone, even
African Americans, no matter how  colorblind we all claim to be.

We are by nature sorters. Evolutionists  theorize that we evolved in small
bands of hunter-gatherers when there was a  selection for within-group amity
and between-group enmity. With our fellow  in-group members, we are
cooperative and altruistic. Unfortunately, the  downside to this pro-social
bonding is that we are also quite tribal and  xenophobic to out-group
members.

This natural tendency to sort people  into Within-Group/This nat
Between-Group/Between-Group/<WBR>Bad is shaped by culture,  so that all A
even those whose ancestry is African)  implicitly inculcate the cultural
association, which includes additional  prejudices.

The Harvard test, in fact, also demonstrates that we prefer  young to old,
thin to fat, straight to gay and such associations as  family-females and
career-males, liberal arts-females and science-males. Such  associations
bubble just below the surface, inhibited by cultural restraints  but
susceptible to eruption under extreme inebriation or  duress.

Richards' sin was his deed; his thoughts are the sin of all  humanity. Only
when all people are considered to be members of one global  in-group (in
principle if not in practice) can we begin to attenuate these  out-group
associations. But it won't be easy. Vigilance is the watchword of  both
freedom and dignity.

We should accept Richards' apology for  losing his temper and acting out
those hateful thoughts. Perhaps we also  ought to thank him for having the
courage to confess in public what far too  many of us still harbor in
private, often in our unconscious minds. As the  Russian novelist Fyodor
Dostoyevsky wrote: "Every man has reminiscences which  he would not tell to
everyone but only his friends. He has other matters in  his mind which he
would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself,  and that in
secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell  even to
himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away  in
his mind."