Denise Tiller, Midwest Voices 2008
Nicolas D. Kristof of The New York Times had an interesting column Sunday morning on "Our Racist, Sexist Selves." I visited his blog at http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/ to try the tests myself.
The first test was the "Police Officer's dilemma" from the University of Chicago.
You see 100 photos of black and white men and you have to decide to shoot or holster your gun. The first time through, I was a little quicker to shoot black men, but the second I shot white guys faster.
Actually, I was focusing on looking for weapons and didn't have time to notice skin color, particularly the second time.
My score improved dramatically the second time through, it went from -525 to -25, so I'm still dead, but I didn't shoot as many innocent people the second time. My reaction times just weren't fast enough to keep from getting shot or killed.
The second test was from Harvard called an "implicit apptitude test."
My results ranked Obama on top (good), McCain in the middle, and Clinton last.
Per the results, I'm not racist but I am sexist which is a little distressing for a 50-ish white woman who thinks of herself as a feminist.
According to Kristof's column, gender is a harder issue to overcome than race.
How do you guys score?
I don't know where to begin with this topic. But let me start by saying that like a hole in the head you don't need a test to know that you're racist.
A "racist" is simply someone who harbors beliefs of racial superiority. This is distinguishable from preference, or from acknowledging association or pattern. The operable word in the definition is "belief". Corroberation is necessary to truly "believe" a hypothesis. As such, blacks cannot be racist in this country in a general sense, as whites could not truly harbor feelings of racial superiority with respect to some sports.
Let me pose a simpler test: If the following sentence can be made true on your behalf, then you are a racist.
"Although everything else is to my liking, preference and/or desire, or satisfy my requirements, I rather not _________(hire, marry, procreate with, do business with, be represented by, etc.) this person, solely because of their race, and prefer to chose someone of my own race, all things being equal."