Thursday, October 16, 2014

Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 6

This scares white racism sufferers
In this series we have been looking at the science which concerns racial impairment in the United States (see references @ Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 3).

There are many things Americans do not know about their country.

One of those things many of us are ignorant about is the degree of racism.

A new study has been published to focus on how symbolic racism impacts our concept of democracy as well as our concept of our national character.

That study shows how symbolic racism affects one of our fundamental concepts about rights of Americans.

We talk the talk about "the right to vote" in elections, but there are growing concerns about whether or not we walk the walk:
A newly published study conducted by the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication reveals that seeing a photograph of African Americans using voting machines affected how white respondents answered a survey question about voter ID laws. White survey respondents who saw this image expressed stronger support for voter ID laws than those who saw no image. Seeing an image of white Americans using voting machines did not affect white respondents’ support.
(Nationwide Study: Racial Images Shape Opinion on Voter ID Laws, PDF). Symbolic racism is animated by subconscious circuits in our brains which have been cultivated there by our culture (Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala, 2, 3, 4).

I recently pointed out how the current epidemic of voter id laws in various states is the result of an infection of fear-based memes (We Got Your Voter Id Fascist Republicans - 2).

It would seem that cultural ignorance (Agnotology: The Surge, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12) works like a trance (Comparing a Group-Mind Trance to a Cultural Amygdala) which causes wide spread dementia (Etiology of Social Dementia, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

This is not the way we put an end to inequality and injustice, rather, it is the way we put an end to civilization itself (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, 2, 3, 4).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

1 comment:

  1. "Racial labels often define how social groups are perceived. The current research utilized both archival and experimental methods to explore the consequences of the “Black” vs. “African-American” racial labels on Whites' evaluations of racial minorities. We argue that the racial label Black evokes a mental representation of a person with lower socioeconomic status than the racial label African-American, and that Whites will react more negatively toward Blacks (vs. African-Americans). In Study, we show that the stereotype content for Blacks (vs. African-Americans) is lower in status, positivity, competence, and warmth. In Study, Whites view a target as lower status when he is identified as Black vs. African-American. In Study, we demonstrate that the use of the label Black vs. African-American in a US Newspaper crime report article is associated with a negative emotional tone in that respective article. Finally, in Study, we show that Whites view a criminal suspect more negatively when he is identified as Black vs. African-American. The results establish how racial labels can have material consequences for a group." (link)

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