Word: dovidio
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...that has been made in addressing racism in the America, we may still be perpetuating prejudice in subtle ways - and, if Weisbuch's findings are validated, in ways that we may not even realize. "Human beings are thinking, cognizant, conscious beings who can be strategic and intentional," says John Dovidio, a professor of psychology at Yale University who wrote an editorial accompanying Weisbuch's study, published Thursday in Science. "But we are also kind of emotional and we do a lot of things without full conscious awareness. What this research suggests is that although our minds are in the right...
...think this helps explain the big discrepancy in [North American] culture between what people say and think about racism and the actual persistence of racism in our society," he says. (The study's participants were students in Toronto, but Dovidio says the results reflect North American, rather than strictly Canadian, biases...
...Dovidio says his study provides strong evidence to the contrary and argues that tacit acceptance of racism is enough to influence outcomes in a society. "The most worrying aspect is that even if a small proportion of a society is active, old-fashioned racists, and if the majority of people who believe they are not racist rationalize away racist behavior and don't intervene or even get upset when it occurs, then the society is going to be an unfair, unequal society," Dovidio says. Kerry Kawakami, a co-author of the study at York University, goes even further, claiming...
...Dovidio and Kawakami say the study suggests North Americans need help, in the form of regulations such as workplace quotas and affirmative action, if they expect to realize their egalitarian ideals. "We shouldn't push policies that focus on intentions but rather on outcomes," Dovidio says...
...Dovidio says that unconscious biases can be overcome through self-awareness as North Americans learn to free blacks from the negative associations that have metaphorically fettered them for so long. As a measure of the difficulty of allowing our better angels to prevail, however, consider this question: Do you imagine those angels to be black...