Now, thanks to the Patriarchy Blamer, I bring your attention to the Implicit Association Tests from Harvard University. These purport to diagnose racial and other biases in an objective way. I took two of the tests. I have a “moderate automatic preference” for African-Americans over Euro-Americans, and I associate weapons slightly more closely with Euro-Americans than I do with African-Americans.
The testers expect that one will be surprised by one’s results. I was not. After all, who is more heavily armed, George W. Bush or the Black drug dealer who lives two blocks from me? Which of these two have caused me more trouble, and more direct harm? I rest my case. Were I yet more rational on these matters, I would have associated weapons and Euro-Americans more strongly than I did.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Phew – Devil and deep blue sea choice between GW and the armed black drugs dealer, if you ask me. I’d prefer to keep an ocean between me and both of them.
Were I yet more rational on these matters, I would have associated weapons and Euro-Americans more strongly than I did.
No kidding! Get them Euro-American UN pukes out of Africa so the Hutus and the Tutsis can go back to making nicey-nicey with each other.
Well you two, I appreciate your reading, but you could both afford to read a bit of history (actually, my original version of this comment said “some fucking history”). Especially you, Dave, on the colonization of Africa, ‘tribal’ warfare, and so on … and current news about what some of these U.N. troops are like, and what they are up to, would not hurt. And Charlie, Bush vs. a random small-time criminal, come on.
I’ll grant you, I’m no great history reader. Somehow, though, I don’t see human nature being much different without colonialist intervention. Political institutions and racial quotas, but not human nature.
So if one black guy was beating up on another one in equatorial Africa in 800 BCE, where’s da whiteman? Can’t see him anywhere. Must be something in the air.
Hey, don’t get me wrong about the UN. They just got caught with their pants down, again.
I came across these tests quite some time ago. As I recall, I came out slightly preferring White to Black, which did surprise me since that’s not how I function. But I also came out slightly preferring gay to straight, which I think has a lot of layers to it. So that makes me think they probably both do. Very interesting. I always meant to go back and re-do them, but never got around to it.
OK, I did the straight/gay one. I was sure I’d end up favoring the straights, but according to the test I have a “slight automatic preference” for gay people. And it is, I suppose, true.
Bang! You found me out. I’ll show you my guns if you ever come visit. (I’m kidding; I can’t even operate a stapler without hurting myself. )
i did that one, too. the one you can cheat on. i came out with no bias. but that was before my own personal recent revelations. i wonder now what i’d test. at the same time, i’m bored even beginning to wonder.
um and this: Somehow, though, I don’t see human nature being much different without colonialist intervention
i’m just not sure what to say.
GRRR
*the one you can’t cheat on.
“So if one black guy was beating up on another one in equatorial Africa in 800 BCE, where’s da whiteman?”
Depends on what race/color one would consider the Greeks. Poseidon was visiting the Ethiopians (around 1200/1000 BCE) while Athena was going behind his back and helping Odysseus home to Ithaca. No powerful deity such as Poseidon would have come home from Ethiopia without gifts. How he got those “gifts” would be suspect since history has always favored the colonizer by not telling the story of the “other.”
Now I’m testing the tests. I think you get more skilled at doing them as you go on. If you are really mentally alert, and used to the test format, you come out unbiased: not because you are trying to fool the test, but because you get into the format and its rhythm.
Anyway, now I’m bored with them but here are some more of the things the tests told me:
1. I have a moderate tendency to associate math/science with men and liberal arts with women.
2. I have a strong tendency to think of Native Americans as “foreign” and white Americans as “American.” (Ahem!)
3. I have a moderate preference for young as opposed to old people.
4. I have a slight preference for darker over lighter skin.
5. I associate women with career slightly more than I do men, and men with family slightly more than I do women. (This is very unusual in their sample.)
6. I have a slight preference for Arab Muslims over everyone else. (Oh-oh – Homeland Security will get me for that!)
Going back to your previous postings . . . .
Thanks for the you-tube links-fest, Little Walter and Charlie Parker were a fantastic choice!
Welcome back!
I would find it difficult to distinguish which one of them could kill me more than the other, that’s all.
Ah – I’ve got the answer to that one! If you’re not involved with the drug dealer, you’ll be fine. Remember he’s at least two blocks away, and he’s only one. That means, no gang crossfire or anything like that in this neighborhood. But we’re all inevitably involved with, and have our lives influenced by, what GW Bush does. –Z
Just took the test. I slightly prefer African-Americans to white folks. Gotta tell my white mom and white girlfriend this!
Well, Z, that might of course be true for you but UK black drug dealers (and white others) and the like have actually tried to kill me in the past (honest!). George Bush has left me alone, although his actions/decisions might indeed have adverse consequences in the future. As things stand, I have more evidence to suggest that black drugs dealers are a greater personal threat. Nonetheless, I find it difficult to distinguish between the two at a higher level of abstraction and, of course, I take your point about GW’s global effect even though, here in Glasgow, it is less seismic than in the USA, the Middle East and some other parts of the world.
Believe me, I know all about the dangers of dangerous neighborhoods, and about how the main victims of crime are the poor, and so on. I am from the United States, and it is not a safe country, and some of the places in it I have lived in it are Los Angeles, Oakland, and New Orleans. In other countries, I’ve lived in cities like Lima and S. Paulo, not the very safest in the world, either.
What fascinates me is how quickly white people / Europeans – and especially men – want to say everyone ELSE is dangerous. And how middle class people want to say that it is common criminals who are dangerous. I say that structural inequalities and large-scale crimes are far more dangerous. That is why I ended up associating Euro-Americans with weapons on that test, more than I did African-Americans.
P.S. on the test: I don’t know, though, maybe it is an objective measure. I just took the fat vs. thin one, expecting it to reveal a terrible prejudice in favor of thin people, but I came out with NO AUTOMATIC PREFERENCE either way.
Anyway, the people against whom I believe myself to be strongly prejudiced are: (a) white men, (b) members of the comfortable middle classes, (c) academic feminists [because of their absolute submission to the patriarchy and extreme anti-feminism in PRACTICE], (d) so-called “Christians”, and (e) 12 steppers [specifically, the self-righteous, judgmental, conformist, anti-feminist, and in general, terribly uptight denizens of Al-Anon and ACOA; AA people should do whatever they need to, I say].
Actually, I do not know whether I would say these are prejudices or … rational dislikes/mistrust or … a matter of taste. I do, of course, make exceptions for many individuals.
Reasons why I fear African-American drug dealers less than I fear the current President of the United States:
1. African-American drug dealers, by and large, are just trying to make the rent; GW, on the other hand, is trying to take over the world (not only does that scare the shit outa me personally on a number of levels, but it makes other people hate the country my passport is from, which means I now have to-the-death enemies I’ve never met or had a negative thought toward).
2. African-American drug dealers are not, for the most part, addicted to their product; from what I understand, GW, on the other hand, may be (addicted to their product, I mean). Drug use makes people way crazier than drug sales.
3. African-American drug dealers do not automatically carry guns or be violent, nor do they typically look for opportunities to do so (the stakes are way too high personally for this kind of acting out); GW, on the other hand, appears to be fixated on the production, sale, and use of weapons up to and including nuclear (as long as it benefits those with the power to define in some economic way or helps them to maintain power even one additional moment–no matter what the risks).
4. I have a clue what African-American drug dealers are doing (they’re selling drugs…duh!); when it comes to GW, on the other hand, I have no idea what he’s up to and, given what he’s already done–and gotten away with–over the past seven years, that should be enough to scare anybody.
And all of this is true and reality based. Thanks, CS! –Z
OK, now I have taken the remaining tests. I don’t really know – it was boring – but I was curious to know what this test would say about me. Here is the last set of results:
1. I have a strong automatic preference for Bill Clinton over George W. Bush.
2. I associate Euro-Americans slightly more with “American” than with “foreign,” and Asian-Americans slightly more with “foreign” than with “American”.
3. I have a moderate automatic preference for the able-bodied over the disabled.
4. I have a slight automatic preference for Judaism over all other religions.
This last response surprised me because I expected I would like it the least, because I am very irritated at the State of Israel and one of my Jewish relatives. But I made a lot of mistakes on this test: I thought the picture of the Buddha was scowling, and every time it came up, I hit “evil.” ! So I disagree with this result. It should have been, no preference for any religion (I am in fact opposed to them all, except for some polytheisms).
i looks like you root for the underdog. that’s nice.
oh, except for the able bodied preference.
There is also the youth over age preference, and the fact that I seem to view both Native Americans and Asian Americans as more “foreign” than Euro-Americans! –Z
Who’s flying the drugs into the country for the drug dealers to sell?
If you said George Bush, you would be muthafucking
R-I-G-H-T!!!
So, we getting it from both ends from the same man.
Hah-lay-loo-yah!!!
Both ends from same man, oh yes.
And a general P.S. on all of this: these automatic preferences have deep roots. I don’t know where all of mine come from in a precise way, but I do remember exactly where the automatic preference for African-Americans over Euro-Americans comes from: a conversation with my father when I was three. He said the former were more likely to have a critical perspective on the establishment than the latter, and he said this in an approving tone. I absorbed the whole thing.
P.P.S. On those dear UN peacekeepers, here’s one of the sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6226829.stm …yes I know it isn’t all of them, but my point is, Western culture is NOT more heroic/virtuous than others.
P.P.P.S. In related matters, there’s a thread at Bitch PhD which bothers me for racism, although I’m sure that by having that reaction, I am underreacting to sexism. Just can’t win for losing ;-). Anyway the xenophobia and American smugness I see in there, I dislike. Am I overreacting? http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2007/01/ask-bitch.html
“P.P.P.S. In related matters, there’s a thread at Bitch PhD which bothers me for racism, although I’m sure that by having that reaction, I am underreacting to sexism. Just can’t win for losing ;-). Anyway the xenophobia and American smugness I see in there, I dislike. Am I overreacting?”
No, you are not overreacting and can I just take this time out to say that I miss Brownfemipower and Blackamazon but I think they needed a break from the shit going on over at Bitch PhD.
I get cat calls whenever I walk down the street here–in the U.S. being a 20 something girl in the city and all.
Maybe I should write to a South American blogger and ask them how to deal with these savage backwards society sexist pigs?
Hi Luisa and thanks for the reality check! Man gossip: I say the Americans are just as sexist, even if more covertly so. Seeming more passive does not equal being less sexist. This is my unscientific opinion at a late hour.
BTW, BFP and BA are both back on line. Was it also Bitch PhD they were reacting to – ?
And finally, in an unrelated side note since I am complaining about other blogs:
a. This internecine warfare on the feminist blogs has SUCH a vicious tone. There is so much projection from one person to another, and people are just not ‘staying within their boundaries’, it seems to me. Exhausting.
b. In an odd story, I went to a blog I hadn’t been to before, as I often do, and left a comment to the effect of, ‘enjoyed your post’ to the author – and they responded (more or less) that I wasn’t being emotional enough. Ay, people are picky and odd … I’d never seen a reaction like that before.