Racism and White Silence

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Turns out despite our air of self congratulation in the US over selecting our first non-white President folks in North America are still reluctant to confront it when we see it. We might claim we don’t like it or don’t support it but we are silent when faced with it. A recent study York university illustrates this disconnect.

While people would clearly condemn racism in advance, the majority of non-black people would sit mute and indifferent as blatant acts of anti-black racism occurred before them, according to the Toronto research, published today in the journal Science.

“People expect in a very deliberate fashion that they’ll be offended by racism, that they’ll censor or avoid racists,” said York psychologist Kerry Kawakami, the lead author of the study.

“But our (research) showed that that’s not the case when they’re actually placed in that situation.”

Indeed, while paying strident lip service to their anti-racist attitudes, most of the study’s non-black subjects did not try to rebuke or even avoid a mock bigot who had been planted in their midst.

Silence is easier. And it sets people up to condition themselves to be perturbed or irritated when that tactic is abandoned by others. Thus, white people will react with dismissal when a non-caucasian becomes “angry” over obvious and/or subtle racism. The “anger” signals a refusal to get along with others. Then the “problem” becomes transferred not to the perpetrator of racism or frankly sexism but the person engaging in the call out process.

For the study, researchers placed three students in a classroom, one white, one black, and one white or Asian. And while two of the students – the black and one white – were in on the scheme, the third believed they were all there waiting for a study to begin.

“Then the black person stands up and says `I forgot my cellphone,’ and he walks out of the room. And as he walks out, he gently hits the other white person on the knee,” Kawakami said. When the black person left the room, the white person turned to the other person and said something racist – “in some cases extremely racist,” she said.

Despite using terms as offensive as “clumsy n—-r,” the planted bigot faced little or no reprisal from the majority of white subjects.

Indeed, said Kawakami, when asked subsequently to pick a partner for the purported study, some 63 per cent of the white students picked the bigot over the black.

Are we really that comfortable with our perceived “own kind” that we will chose to avoid confronting them when they are clearly wrong?

A control group of “forecaster” students, who faced no racist comments but were told of the experiment, predicted overwhelmingly that they would be offended and would lash out at the speaker.

In an accompanying article, a pair of U.S. researchers says the York work may simply point to a quirk of being a participant in an experiment. Psychologists Eliot Smith, of Indiana University, and Diane Mackie, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, said experimental subjects are usually in an unfamiliar mindset, and that a strange perspective may alter their emotional responses.

Are we so conditioned to avoid social risk that we would rather simply think the best of ourselves but not act on it? Indeed if we speak out what are the risks? Do we fear being associated with the out group itself and essentially losing our status as a member of the dominant group. What does it say about our adaptability if we do alter our emotional responses when in an unfamiliar environment? What is says in many ways is that we prefer and will always chose what we think is change that does not directly cause us pain or distress. The problem is of course that change usually is painful. We often do lose something that we cherished or clung to. Many of us either grew up in households where there was blatant racism or simply no discussion about it at all. Silence and avoidance is a pretty common dynamic around touchy subjects: sex/money/racism. I would suggest many of us inherited patterns in our families that left us unprepared to confront injustice in the social sphere and that it often got reinforced in school and work settings.

Now, the obvious answer is that is no excuse.

But like many people who have a supervisory position in the workplace setting I have seen time and time again when people recognize a problem discuss it but don’t act. And when I ask them why they frequently cite a lack of support among peers as a reason why they are reluctant to develop new tactics to achieve another result.

The other interesting aspect of the study was the responses it got in the comment section of the Toronto Star….. I think this might relieve some Americans of the notion that Canadians are somehow nicer or more tolerant.

Why is always from the white perspective? I often find that other cultures are now far more intolerant and racist than than whites. Why don’t we study the racism between China and Korea? Or Jews and Muslims. I feel this study is very offensive.

So. Whites aren’t the only racists therefore we don’t need to see it as a problem. Everybody does it….

Why are all these so called studies directed toward anti black racism. Blacks can be racist too…just go to Jamaica and lie on the beach to find out. Blacks are racist too…just ask around and cut the BS. I’m tired of hearing how hard done by the world blacks are. I have black blood in me so I can say this, however should a white person or any other race say they are branded as anti-black

The peer pressure/fear of exposure arguement…..

Frankly, I’d be scared of someone who would make such a vicious remark to strangers. I don’t think this study proves anything. I don’t go around getting in to arguments with strangers who make such aggressive comments. If the person threw out an ugly comment over his knee being tapped, what would he do if confronted? Bad science

The “white people are really the victims” arguement…..

If we had WET (White Entertainment Television) we’d be Racists. If we had a White Pride Day, you would call us racists. If we had White History Month, we’d be racists. If we had any Organization for only whites to ‘advance’ OUR lives we’d be racists. We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber Of Commerce, and then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce. Wonder who pays for that? A white woman could not be in the Miss Black American pageant, but any color can be in the Miss America pageant. Why can’t we have a Miss White America contest

The “it does not really mean anything arguement”…..

Sticks and stones…. Who cares, as long as they’re is no KKK, Arien or Panthers running around, big deal. We’re never going to love everyone from every race, but it doesn’t make people raging racists. Just because someone calls me cracker doesn’t mean i’m going to beaten or exterminated or repressed. Relax people. You need to earn respect in this world, and this is no different. If you deserve it, you will get it, regardless of race

A number of other comments either attacked York university or called the study “bad science” rather than consider the possibility that silence in the face of racism is still a problem.

What do you think?