President Obama walks fine line on race, justice
11 years ago
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Racism in our culture
Going along the lines of what we talked about yesterday, how 1 and 3 black men are in prison and how prisons are just part of our culture, reminded me of a psychology study where neutral faces of white and black men were quickly presented and either a picture of a gun or a hammer was shown for a split second after and participants had to say if it was a gun or a hammer. The results supported the hypothesis that people thought the image was a gun 75% more when it was presented after a picture of a black man versus a white man. I just thought that this provides more evidence that in our culture, black men are stereotypes as aggressive and most likely to commit a crime.
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ReplyDeleteFirstly, can you tell me what the name of this study is?
ReplyDeleteI see these studies as indicating that we are certainly more racially biased than we may admit to ourselves. I catch myself at times having unjustified believes based on racial profiling. The tricky part is asking whether our implicit bias has justification? That is, is there a empirical reason to link a race to a stigma more so than other race. If so, this would seem to support an approach similar to Du Bois' who argued that reforming racial prejudice must be through self-empowerment.
Given our discussion on the statistics of black men in prisons, this study unfortunately does not surprise me. While I do not know that the reality is a fair reflection of racial difference and I believe that it is the result of hyper surveillance in certain areas-- how can we ever determine whether or not statistics are reflective of actual reality?
ReplyDeleteIn this case, it would seem reasonably to assume that black men are more likely to commit a crime because one in three is involved with the prison system. One in three white men do not go to through the prison system.
I think an important thing for society to do is consider the ways in which we can challenge cycles like this and work to deconstruct stereotypes that translate into realities because of a fear. How can we work to reduce the amount of black men in prison? I know there are programs that are working to fight this, but is that enough?--especially if so many people don't know about them?
Is it possible to shift cultural perceptions and stereotypes to change the way in which we respond to certain ideas? Is there a way to overcome the idea that black men are more likely to be criminal?