Everybody go read this.

[filenotch]

That means you.

Buried Prejudice: The Bigot in Your Brain
Deep within our subconscious, all of us harbor biases that we consciously abhor. And the worst part is: we act on them
By Siri Carpenter
Scientific American, May 2008

Comments

[treewishes]

Interesting. I can only read this and do a lot of nodding.

How I deal with it is the same way I deal with marriage: Each person has to feel like they're giving more than 50% to make it work. So whenever I'm in a situation that has the potential to reveal the "bigot in my brain", I go past my normal limits to interact and integrate. It's the only way I know to make things "even".

Thanks for the link!

[filenotch]

So whenever I'm in a situation that has the potential to reveal the "bigot in my brain", I go past my normal limits to interact and integrate. It's the only way I know to make things "even".

And that becomes a problem as well, or at least it can. There was a study showing that white students paired with black students on a task of describing pictures of faces showed two things (among many). First, the white students wouldn't use color to describe the face if their partner was black. Second, the white student (probably trying hard not to seem prejudiced) was judged as less friendly when the partner was black when (get this) their video was watched by someone who had no idea of the color of the partner.

This stuff is so fucking complicated.

[treewishes]

Yeah, definitely complicated. :\

I got past describing people as "black" a while back. I try not to use "african american", but I'll say "he's black, with lighter skin and very short hair" or "she's black, with darker skin and long braids". Trying not to use "black" as the only thing you need to know about a person, ya know?