Are You Racist?

A recent poll conducted by Opinion Research Corp. for CNN found that a majority of Americans--66% of whites and 84% of blacks--believe that racism today ranks somewhere between "somewhat serious" and "very serious."

However, when asked if they themselves are racist, guess what? A mere 13% of whites and 12% of blacks considered themselves racially biased. Surprising? I think not.

In an earlier blog, Kramer Gets Crazed, I talked briefly about the modern American tendency to ignore or be blind to one's own biases. Overt racism of days gone by, pre-civil rights era, has given way to a new, more subtle racism that is sometimes held so deep underground that the individual him/herself does not recognize it. The key problem here is that whether we realize it or not, the underlying racism comes across anyway. Witness Kramer's outburst, Mel's drunken tirade, and in fact, most reality TV shows (e.g. MTV's current Real World Denver series as soon as tension arises between blacks and whites it seems, the N-word or C-word (I'm referring to the word used against whites--cracker)is soon to follow. [br][br] But, if you yourself have never uttered hateful words, you might think you're in the clear. To you, I say this: beware, racism doesn't just come across in those rare, unguarded moments of blatant hateful oubursts. Alvin Pouissant talked rather eloquently about, in fact, he labeled the term, "microinequities" which refers to the small, subtle acts of discrimination (such as repeatedly avoiding eye contact with the one minority person in a group) that communicate discrimatory beliefs just as loudly as racial slurs. [br][br] [link url=http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/12/racism.poll/]According to CNN[/link], "University of Connecticut professor Jack Dovidio, who has researched racism for more than 30 years, estimates up to 80 percent of white Americans have racist feelings they may not even recognize." That means, many of us need to take a closer look, not at others, but at ourselves. [br][br] [h3]So, are you racially biased?[/h3] Take the [link url=https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/] online test featured on CNN and created by a Harvard Professor[/link] and find out. [br][br] All of us inherit biases. The question is: how can you unlearn these learned prejudiced attitudes and behaviors? [br][br] [link url=http://erclk.about.com/?zi=15/tOA]Intercultural Communication[/link] serves as a resource and can guide you through your existing mental models (or ideas) about groups of people and to explore how external influences shape your perspectives, and ultimately, your behavior when interacting with people from different backgrounds._z_racerelations_z_);