Racism has existed for many years. We encounter racism on a daily basis and we cannot ignore this issue. It is changing our lives, it can have an influence on our decisions, it can make someone’s life harder. I strongly believe that you cannot judge people by appearance, by belonging to some race. We may do this every day, but are we right to do so? I mean nobody can select the race or appearance, it is not our choice. I do think it is incorrect to consider that you are better than somebody just because you have another colour of the skin or you were born in another society. I think, most of us are sure that we are not racists, but how do we act when it comes to the real-life situations and not while thinking theoretically during some free time?
The second video Dateline NBC Psychological Dispositions in Black White (YouTube, 2016), shows that even when we receive a proof that we are racists in some way, not everybody can accept it. For example, we can see that white-skinned participants who have shown preference for white race are trying to justify these results. People, who belong to the black-skinned race are very proud if they have shown a strong preference to black-skinned people. And the most interesting result as for me is where African race has shown preference to the white people. They were shocked by the results, but in my opinion, it shows that the prejudices may come not only from what we think, but from what we have learnt, what we can hear everyday, what we can see, what the society wants us to think. The “good-bad” decision may not be ours, but an imposed one.
The Harvard University IAT website has a wide range of the IAT tests. I have completed the Light Skin - Dark Skin IAT. Taking the Implicit Association Test was an interesting experience for me, because I wanted to know if I have any racist prejudices or making my decision, based on it. The test was not hard, but I have made some mistakes during it. It can be connected with high speed of the test or maybe I was taking some decisions automatically. But overall results were acceptable for me, as after watching the videos mentioned above, I was afraid to have some hidden judgement, opinion about races. My results showed that my data suggest little to no automatic preference between Light Skin and Dark Skin. It was interesting to know that only 17% of participants of this test have the same results. For those who wants to know more about the subject, the Harvard University IAT website can offer many different tests that can be taken for free. It also includes a short survey to fill in. It contains some questions about race, political and religious views, education and family.
The interesting fact that it has a question about the hands, which one a person uses for making some actions as hand wring, drawing and playing a tennis. As a right-handed person can be used to do everything with a right hand, therefore it could influence on the test results. The same could happen with left-handed people. I think that people, who are using both hands to make everyday actions can get the most correct answers on tests like this. I am not talking about ambidexterity, rather about mixed predominance, a type of dominance when different tasks best performed by different hands. But these types are very rare among people, so we cannot say for sure. That is why a question about dominant hand is a very important one. This test is good for passing for those who want to know more about racist issues. It helps to take a glance on the problem from a different point of view, it gives a chance to see the overall results of respondents and it includes some statistics about our decisions, motivated by our opinion about some race. It can be a key of understanding of ourselves and a source of global problems.
References
YouTube,. (2016). Dateline NBC Psychological Dispositions in Black White. Retrieved 4 March 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX-kmKIH7q4
YouTube,. (2016). Implicit Association Test. Retrieved 4 March 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5Q5FQfXZag
