*Paywall Alert
by Chris Mooney | December 2014
Most white Americans demonstrate bias against blacks, even if they’re not aware of or able to control it. It’s a surprisingly little-discussed factor in the anguishing debates over race and law enforcement that followed the shootings of unarmed black men by white police officers. Such implicit biases — which, if they were to influence split-second law enforcement decisions, could have life or death consequences — are measured by psychological tests, most prominently the computerized Implicit Association Test, which has beens taken by over two million people online at the website Project Implicit. Includes a state map with the highest level of implicit bias.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Implicit Bias] [Policing] [Implicit Racism] [Accountability] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism]
by Christopher Ingraham | April 2015
Where do America’s most racist people live? “The rural Northeast and South,” suggests a new study just published in PLOS ONE. The paper introduces a novel but makes-tons-of-sense-when-you-think-about-it method for measuring the incidence of racist attitudes: Google search data. The methodology comes from data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. He’s used it before to measure the effect of racist attitudes on Barack Obama’s electoral prospects. Includes a map of the most racist places in America.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [Employment]
by Fred Barbash | October 2015
Larry Mantle, a radio host in California was moderating a discussion last month at UC-Irvine on the fraught subject of “microaggressions,” words, though uttered innocently by white people, are said to deeply offend those who are less privileged when he made a big mistake: As he called on the first questioner, he asked “Where are you from?” That’s a standard question for talk show hosts. But the audience froze in silence, briefly and uncomfortably, before breaking into a nervous laughter. Katrina, the questioner, explained: “People are laughing because of the question,” she said. But she forgave Mantle. “I don’t need to take offense at that,” she said, “because I’m part of the privileged majority who don’t constantly have to put up with questions of where I am from.” Asking someone of color or any minority “Where are you from or where were you born?,” the guidelines suggested, could send the message that “you are not a true American. You are a perpetual foreigner in your own country.” The same for comments like “you speak English very well” and “What are you? You’re so interesting looking!” Saying to an African American, “When I look at you, I don’t see color” is a kind of “color blindness” that denies “the individual as a racial/cultural being.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [Colorblindness] [Microaggressions]
by Brian Corr | June 2020
A few people have written me to say they struggled with one particular part of what I wrote in my last piece, …But does my Black Life Matter? Here’s what I wrote: “But always beware the temptation to choose which Black people to follow and then using your privilege to promote them.” …I am asking you to examine your own need for agency, to examine your desire to take action, to examine the entitlement and privilege that allows you to decide what you want to do and to examine all the life experience that tells you that you should be in charge — even as you “follow Black leadership.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Black Lives Matter] [White Privilege] [Accountability]
by Kelly Kirschner | June 2020
Similar to recorded killings of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, the only reason that this came to the public’s attention and outrage was due to the Herald-Tribune’s publication of a video recording of a SPD officer allowing an inebriated immigrant, Juan Perez, to climb out of a squad car and fall six feet onto his head, his hands handcuffed behind his back The officer then proceeded to kick the man and stand on him. It ultimately led to the firing of the officer, the resignation of the chief of police, the creation of a city police complaint committee and an independent police advisory panel. In spite of a history of other complaints of excessive use of force against the offending officer, he remained and advanced within the force prior to the Perez incident, which ultimately cost the City hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuit settlements and legal fees. Perhaps most disturbing, three years after the incident, a panel of Sarasota residents that included a former and current city commissioner board voted unanimously to reinstate the fired officer, giving him three years of back pay, in spite of the African American chief of police advocating that they ratify the officer’s termination, due to his dangerous disregard of protocol in caring for a handcuffed individual.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Slavery] [History] [Politics] [Anti-Racism]
by Emily Stewart | June 2020
There are good ways — and there are less good ways — to be a white ally right now. Do take cues from black leaders and create space for their voices to be heard. Don’t think a performative emotional post on Instagram about your knowledge of racism does the trick. Do not center your feelings during this time of social unrest — an uprising that’s about racist violence against black Americans. … “Allyship is language, and being a co-conspirator is about doing the work,” said Ben O’Keefe, an activist and former senior aide to Sen. Elizabeth Warren. “It’s taking on the issue of racism and oppression as your own issue, even though you’ll never truly understand the damage that it does.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [Black Lives Matter] [Anti-Racism] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [White Fragility/Tears] [Economics] [Policing] [Assumptions] [Advocacy] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [2020’s]
