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

[Paul or Lisa]

I absolutely agree, Rita, that Richards should not be forgiven because it 
appeared he gave a heartfelt apology on television (he is, after all, an 
actor).  His comments are inexcusable. However, I think it is important that 
we self-reflect and examine our own biases.  There are, after all, varying 
degrees of prejudice.  My 91-year-old grandmother living in rural small-town 
Ohio, who has never worked outside the home, for example, is afraid of 
African Americans.  Her fear stems from her limited life experiences but it 
is racist nonetheless. Yet, she would never use the n-word publicly or 
privately.  Clearly, her racism is not as severe as Mr. Richards, yet it is 
still there lurking.

I think the point is to take a good hard look in the mirror and acknowledge 
our own prejudices.  Then work to eliminate them.

Lisa Weinbaum
Las Cruces Public Schools






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rita Kohli" <rkohli at ucla.edu>
To: <KispokoT at aol.com>; <name-mce at nameorg.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 11:19 AM
Subject: Re: (Name-mce) ListServ We're all racists, unconsciously


>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."
>
>
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