Living in the America it is impossible to escape racist conditioning because it is so prevalent in our media and history. No white person is “innocent” of racism because every white person benefits from the intuitional structures that create and perpetuate it. These biases inform unconscious decisions and need to be acknowledged in order to move past them and become a more accepting individual. For African Americans in particular, racism entails a set of cultural and historical problems that affect their everyday lives. Internalized racism affects everyone in America regardless of race and can take a deadly turn when not properly acknowledged by law enforcement officials. One very famous study conducted by Kenneth Clark and his wife Mamie
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This automatic reaction can be overridden in a nanosecond if the person consciously recognizes their biases and is able to move past them. Small acts such as turning one’s body away, making less eye contact, and laughing less during conversation may seem trivial but those are significant non-verbal cues that others notice, consciously or otherwise, and are nonetheless important. In the context of American society, this is particularly significant because, “although many white Americans consider themselves unbiased, when unconscious stereotypes are measured, some 90% implicitly link blacks with negative traits (evil, failure)” (Begley 2004, p. 1). Instead of focusing on whether or not African Americans harbor self-hatred because of the historical and cultural significance and prevalence of racism in America is less important than why white Americans consistently show biases against African Americas.
Racial biases are present in all facets of American life but the recent focus has shifted to police brutality and the treatment of African Americans by law enforcement officials. Cops regardless of race are more likely to shoot an unarmed black person than they are to shoot an unarmed white person (Correll). While this may seem like another example of unconscious bias, people working in a field that has killed 1205 people …show more content…
However, despite articles speaking of how important it is for white Americans in particular to acknowledge their own biases, none of the articles mentioned touched on why white Americans have such seemingly ingrained ideas and prejudices towards African Americans. If this is innate, why do we not see more African Americans showing stronger racial bias towards white Americans? One possible explanation is that since white is considered the default, white Americans rarely have to examine their own thought processes surrounding how they are viewed and how they view other people. An “I don’t see it so it doesn’t exist” state of mind becomes acceptable in a context where we are not asked to think critically and attempt to move past our own racial biases and the effects they have on the people around
This automatic reaction can be overridden in a nanosecond if the person consciously recognizes their biases and is able to move past them. Small acts such as turning one’s body away, making less eye contact, and laughing less during conversation may seem trivial but those are significant non-verbal cues that others notice, consciously or otherwise, and are nonetheless important. In the context of American society, this is particularly significant because, “although many white Americans consider themselves unbiased, when unconscious stereotypes are measured, some 90% implicitly link blacks with negative traits (evil, failure)” (Begley 2004, p. 1). Instead of focusing on whether or not African Americans harbor self-hatred because of the historical and cultural significance and prevalence of racism in America is less important than why white Americans consistently show biases against African Americas.
Racial biases are present in all facets of American life but the recent focus has shifted to police brutality and the treatment of African Americans by law enforcement officials. Cops regardless of race are more likely to shoot an unarmed black person than they are to shoot an unarmed white person (Correll). While this may seem like another example of unconscious bias, people working in a field that has killed 1205 people …show more content…
However, despite articles speaking of how important it is for white Americans in particular to acknowledge their own biases, none of the articles mentioned touched on why white Americans have such seemingly ingrained ideas and prejudices towards African Americans. If this is innate, why do we not see more African Americans showing stronger racial bias towards white Americans? One possible explanation is that since white is considered the default, white Americans rarely have to examine their own thought processes surrounding how they are viewed and how they view other people. An “I don’t see it so it doesn’t exist” state of mind becomes acceptable in a context where we are not asked to think critically and attempt to move past our own racial biases and the effects they have on the people around