The ugly face of white prejudice

Forums: Politics
Email this Topic • Print this Page

Quote:

The ugly face of white prejudice

From The Times
February 18, 2008

Jennifer Eberhardt, of Stanford University, has just completed what she calls 'some of the most depressing work' of her career. Her research appears to show that many white Americans subconsciously associate black people with apes.

Male undergraduates - mostly white - were tested on how quickly they could identify hazy sketches of apes. But, before being shown the sketches, pictures of male faces were flashed in front of them for a fraction of a second. If the flashed faces were black, the students were subsequently able to identify the sketches as apes much more quickly. White or Asian faces, on the other hand, did not speed up response times.

Another study examined news reports published between 1979 and 1999 in the Philadelphia Inquirer, focusing on Americans convicted of capital crimes. Black convicts were four times more likely than whites to be described as 'barbaric', a 'beast', 'savage' and 'wild'. More pertinently, the blacks were more likely to be executed. Yet another study found that, when presented with the scenario of a black suspect being beaten by the police, students primed with the words ape or gorilla were more likely to excuse that brutality. This bias did not appear for white suspects, leading researchers to infer that the animal terms 'dehumanised' the black suspects.

In all, six studies, done in collaboration with colleagues at Pennsylvania State University and the University of California, Berkeley, appear this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Professor Eberhardt, who is black, concludes that subtle racism has replaced overt racism and there is still a 'battle for blacks to be recognised as fully human'.

You could throw your hands up in despair. Or you could marvel, as I do, that America might soon elect a black President.

Do you suppress your anger, or let it all hang out? If, say, PC Plod accused you of a crime you hadn't committed, would you lose your temper or accompany him quietly to the station?

If you are prone to bottling it all up and you wed a fellow bottler, you could lose years off your life. So suggests Professor Ernest Harburg, of the University of Michigan School of Public Health. He registered 192 couples aged between 30 and 69 in 1971, asking them the policeman question and using their answers to rate each partner as an anger 'expresser' or 'suppresser'. He then followed them up for two decades.

In the 26 couples where the husband and wife were both anger suppressors, Harburg recorded 13 deaths. In the remaining 166 couples, there were a relatively low 41 deaths. The research is published in the Journal of Family Communication. One psychologist says that the findings 'add weight to the growing evidence that poor emotional housecleaning has health consequences in marriages'. Let the glassware fly!

Timesonline

I think i will let someone else comment first. Shocked

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 0 • Views: 1,167 • Replies: 18

No top replies

Many white Americans think that black people are like apes or monkeys?

Other "surprising" facts that nobody knew before:

-- The sky is blue.
-- Gravity causes things to fall to the ground when you let them go.
-- Running with scissors is dangerous.

0 Replies

I saw this supposed finding in a science website recently. One reason I don't believe, personally, that the findings are correct is because so many under 30 (years of age) Caucasian males have adopted Black culture: the rap music, the style of clothes, the manner of walking, wearing a baseball hat with the brim to the side. Something is incongruous. I always believed my mother when she told me, "Don't believe everything you read."

0 Replies

that you would say white people who have adopted that hip hop hat to the back bullshiyt have adopted black culture is pretty damn prejudiced right there pal.

You think all blacks are gangster rappers do ya? take another look around...

0 Replies

The black racial group has split into two parts, you have the upwardly mobile mainstream blacks, and the street blacks. The mainstream group has more in common with other mainstream people than they do with the street blacks ideologized in Rap.

Street blacks are going no where and spend their days making a virtue of their squalor and bad education. Main streamers would rather spend their time getting an education, working, and making something of themselves.

White's who are into hip hop seem to be just like the middle class kids who spent a bit of time during the early seventies on a hippie commune. They are slumming it, maybe for kicks, maybe because they believe in what they are doing. When it stops being fun they will throw away the clothes and resume their more standard identity.

Just as the hippies grew weary of the counter-culture squallar the white kids will eventually wise up and see that the black street culture is a ticket to no where....something the mainstream blacks figured out awhile ago.

0 Replies

WOW!

0 Replies

I used to do gangsta rap when i was a young girl...

but, i didn't know what the hell I was talking about either.

0 Replies

hawkeye10 wrote:

The black racial group has split into two parts, you have the upwardly mobile mainstream blacks, and the street blacks. The mainstream group has more in common with other mainstream people than they do with the street blacks ideologized in Rap.

Street blacks are going no where and spend their days making a virtue of their squalor and bad education. Main streamers would rather spend their time getting an education, working, and making something of themselves.

White's who are into hip hop seem to be just like the middle class kids who spent a bit of time during the early seventies on a hippie commune. They are slumming it, maybe for kicks, maybe because they believe in what they are doing. When it stops being fun they will throw away the clothes and resume their more standard identity.

Just as the hippies grew weary of the counter-culture squallar the white kids will eventually wise up and see that the black street culture is a ticket to no where....something the mainstream blacks figured out awhile ago.

What of those [like me] that are 'mainstream' black and still have a love for the hip hop culture, as it was pre-gangsta era? Do you have a group for me?

0 Replies

Yeah, I was wondering about the two groups thing......

0 Replies

onyxelle wrote:

hawkeye10 wrote:
The black racial group has split into two parts, you have the upwardly mobile mainstream blacks, and the street blacks. The mainstream group has more in common with other mainstream people than they do with the street blacks ideologized in Rap.

Street blacks are going no where and spend their days making a virtue of their squalor and bad education. Main streamers would rather spend their time getting an education, working, and making something of themselves.

White's who are into hip hop seem to be just like the middle class kids who spent a bit of time during the early seventies on a hippie commune. They are slumming it, maybe for kicks, maybe because they believe in what they are doing. When it stops being fun they will throw away the clothes and resume their more standard identity.

Just as the hippies grew weary of the counter-culture squallar the white kids will eventually wise up and see that the black street culture is a ticket to no where....something the mainstream blacks figured out awhile ago.

What of those [like me] that are 'mainstream' black and still have a love for the hip hop culture, as it was pre-gangsta era? Do you have a group for me?

that would be the "chicken tastes like wood" group...

0 Replies

onyxelle wrote:

What of those [like me] that are 'mainstream' black and still have a love for the hip hop culture, as it was pre-gangsta era? Do you have a group for me?

Is the street culture Hip Hop?? It once was, it used to have a sweetness to it. But then the Hippie culture was sweet too during "the summer of love". With-in two years it was nothing but a drug infested disaster.

Black street went bad, which is why you are now increasingly hearing the mainstreamers speak out about it. It started years ago with Bill Cosby, and he was considered at the time a joke with-in the black community. But listen to what blacks had to say during the Imus dust-up last year. Cosby does not look so wrong now

I don't have to define the shape of the black community, just listen to what the blacks themselves say.

0 Replies

hawkeye10 wrote:

Black street went bad

I agree. I didn't like their albums all that much myself.

heheheh cheap joke. I'm goig to bed now, but I'm sure when I come here in the morning there will be other responses more thought out than mine. But,I'm sure I'll still feel the need to comment.

0 Replies

Damn. Couldn't just 'leave'

hawkeye10 wrote:

Black street went bad, which is why you are now increasingly hearing the mainstreamers speak out about it. It started years ago with Bill Cosby

I would like to add that simply because his comments were televised, do not make the mistake of thinking that Black people haven't spoken out against the ills and pains of the black community WITHIN the black community. The lack of national coverage doesn't mean things havent' been being said

hawkeye10 wrote:

Bill Cosby, and he was considered at the time a joke with-in the black community.

I don't know anyone that has ever considered him a joke. What I do know, is that many people didn't appreciate him speaking about the things our community isn't so proud of in the open air and hearing of those not directly involved.

hawkeye10 wrote:

I don't have to define the shape of the black community, just listen to what the blacks themselves say.

I didn't ask you to define the shape of the black community, I asked you to figure out a group for me, since you seem to have the the various types of black personalities all figured out Smile

0 Replies

I pretty much agree with what you are saying onyxelle but I would argue that what has happened is that the make up of what you call the community has changed. It was until very recently true that the community revolved around the church, and that for the most part those who moved away into mainstream communities came back to the church at least on Sunday. The connection was maintained between the mainstreamers and the street blacks. This has from all accounts that I have been able to find snapped very recently. Mainstreamers increasingly have NOTHING to do with street blacks. They have assimilated into middle class "multicultural" culture (though for the most part it is still a white looking multicultural culture)

This I think is what is most responsible for both street culture getting worse, and mainstreamers new found refusal to stay silent about what has become of black culture as it is represented in street culture.

0 Replies

Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

that you would say white people who have adopted that hip hop hat to the back bullshiyt have adopted black culture is pretty damn prejudiced right there pal.

You think all blacks are gangster rappers do ya? take another look around...

You are misconstruing what I said. I never said all Blacks are gangsta rappers. What I did say was that, how can the initial posting about a university researcher be correct, if so many White young men have adopted "the Black culture of rap music, clothes."

That's only saying that some White young men have adopted a subset of the Black culture, which would be incongruous if all White young people thought what the university researcher claims.

And, I don't think all Blacks are gangsta rappers. I never said that, nor implied that. There was no prejudice in my statements. I don't see why you would think that. I was talking about my observations, based on a northeast urban area. Perhaps, your region is different?

However, if Blacks are the originators of rap music, and the respective clothing style, with a baseball cap brim cocked to the side, then that is part of Black culture. One isn't offending the secular Jew, that doesn't wear a skullcap, by saying that the Jewish culture includes wearing a skullcap! Referring to a "culture" is not referring to all possible members of that culture. Another example, some Christians just have a wreath on their doors at Christmas, but it is correct to say the Christian holiday of Christmas includes Christmas trees. It is frustrating to have one's thoughts extrapolated incorrectly. There seems to be some sensitivity in your reply to me that I don't know what is motivating it? And, you do know that there are Blacks that believe that if one doesn't enjoy the Black culture of rap music, or jazz, Rhythm and Blues, or Mo Town, one is not subscribing to any part of Black music culture. I have no problem with White youth subscribing to any part of the popular Black culture; do you? Nor, do I have any problem with any part of the popular Black culture. It's their culture, so I should mind my own business, and even mind my own business when some White youth decide to subscribe to some aspect of it.

0 Replies

easy foofie... no sudden movements... :wink:

0 Replies

Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

easy foofie... no sudden movements... :wink:

I don't know what you are alluding to? One must be literal when communicating with Foofie!

The ugly face of white prejudice

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know