# Everybody is a little bit racist **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 2, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834 "2013-03-02T17:22:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/41 "2013-03-03T03:54:26Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > But is it evolutionary? Aparently not. Up until about five seconds ago I thought it was. A quick Google search of “Is Racism learned” produced some interesting results: [One article](http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/06/09/harvard-researcher-says-children-learn-racism-quickly/gWuN1ZG3M40WihER2kAfdK/story.html) [QUOTE=The Boston Globe] For more than four decades, the notion that racism and physical prejudice don’t fully develop in humans until the teen or adult years has been at the root of research into racism. Popular scientific belief had been that children, who only develop the ability to express racial preferences at around age 3, gradually develop those preferences over time and only cement them well into their teen years. But new research not yet published by Mahzarin Banaji, a renowned Harvard University psychologist, brain researcher, and racism and physical prejudice expert, and colleagues suggests that even though they may not understand the “why’’ of their feelings, children exposed to racism tend to accept and embrace it as young as age 3, and in just a matter of days. [/QUOTE] Hmm, learn some thing new… ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/42 "2013-03-03T04:01:44Z")
Humans, by nature: 1. Are gregarious. 2. Generalize. 3. Use biases for easier or faster decision making. 4. Cling to notions like “traditional” or “normal”. I’ll stop right there. None of these are inherently “evil” and we can easily add more to this list, but already, we can see the odds are against anyone born into civilization to not have cultivated some set of prejudices and biases to navigate through a very complicated society. The tricky part is when learning to recognize irrational and unfounded beliefs based on any of these generalizations that are, ultimately by design, hateful and divisive, and reject them as the contrived non-sense that it is. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/43 "2013-03-03T04:05:53Z")
According to the results of that test my preference for people goes: white \> black \> hispanic \> asian Though they are all fairly closely clustered around the center of positive to negative. None are strongly associated with positive or negative. Interesting results! ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/44 "2013-03-03T04:08:12Z")
I think everyone’s a little bit something -ist. We are products of our cultures and our cultures are racist, sexist, religionist (probably not a word) as hell. And there’s a reason why if you watch Star Trek the humans have diverse cultures and the alien planets have only one. We lump “alien” things into one group and split familiar groups down into individuals. So one human doesn’t represent humanity, but one ET represents all of them. If you see someone from a culture you don’t know anything about, they become representative of that culture whereas your neighbor is an individual who represents only herself. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/45 "2013-03-03T04:10:03Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > According to the results of that test my preference for people goes: > > white \> black \> hispanic \> asian > > Though they are all fairly closely clustered around the center of positive to negative. None are strongly associated with positive or negative. > > Interesting results! Mine claimed that I loved Asians and hated everybody else. However, I think I may have been primed by getting Asians for the first two rounds of the picture matching game. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/46 "2013-03-03T04:14:54Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > Mine claimed that I loved Asians and hated everybody else. However, I think I may have been primed by getting Asians for the first two rounds of the picture matching game. In the gay community we call your type rice queens! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/47 "2013-03-03T04:18:05Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > in the gay community we call your type rice queens! 🆒 _omg RACIST!!!_ ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/48 "2013-03-03T04:55:00Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > _omg RACIST!!!_ Asians were lowest on my list (though not even all that particularly negative). Maybe it’s just because my Asian boyfriend dumped me recently and I’m harboring some resentment??? Maybe I am a racist! ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/49 "2013-03-03T05:00:15Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > Asians were lowest on my list (though not even all that particularly negative). Maybe it’s just because my Asian boyfriend dumped me recently and I’m harboring some resentment??? > > Maybe I am a racist! I was just razzin’ ya. 🆒 Personally, I think it takes a lot more than subtle (even unconscious) notions like that to qualify for being a bona fide racist. Furthermore, I doubt your recent breakup had anything to do with that list or your feelings on Asians overall, assuming it’s even accurate in any meaningful way. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/50 "2013-03-03T05:25:29Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > Can you really not imagine how it might be an evolutionary advantage to fear/hate people who look different than your own tribe? That isn’t racism. You can have tribal hatred between groups of people who look the same. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/51 "2013-03-03T11:39:56Z")
> [@Blackberry](#): > > Anyone taken this [word association test](https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/featuredtask.html) before? I did a long time ago so I forget exactly what their categories are but it said something like that I was mild or moderately racist One of the creators of project implicit (Mahzarin Banaji) recently did an [interesting bloggingheads interview](http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/15811); you might want to check it out. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/52 "2013-03-03T12:09:18Z")
Our brains are wired with a tendency for prejudice, because in some contexts, a reflexive, split-second aversion to something can be life saving. A generalised fear/distrust of that which is different from the familiar is a survival trait - and lumping all examples of something into a category ‘bad’ can help - for example, jumping away from _all_ snakes means we don’t get bitten by what may be a very small minority of dangerous ones. We’ve got additional layers of thinking in our brains though, so we can learn to override the prejudices. I don’t think it’s especially bad if someone reacts in a viscerally racist fashion the first time they’re exposed to a new situation - what’s bad is \*constructed systems/i] of racism - when, rather than using intelligent thought to properly understand and modify the gut reaction, the intelligent thought is used to build a pseudo-rational framework justifying and amplifying it. ---
**Author:** ![TheCrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a6a055/32.png) [@TheCrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheCrow)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/53 "2013-03-03T14:05:19Z")
> [@Pitchmeister](#): > > [Everyone’s a little bit racist, sometimes, > Doesn’t mean we go around committing hate crimes!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHKIMOgoJoU) I think white Europeans perceive blacks as contributing far more to Western society than Muslims (He doesn’t have to be a Muslim. Coming from a predominantly Muslim country is enough to be hated by Europeans) Black people are loved in Europe, specifically in Germany, for some reason(s) I can’t fathom out. If you come from a Muslim country or a country in Middle East, you’d be better off staying away from Europe. BTW, you Germans are the most racist pigs in the existence. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/54 "2013-03-03T14:30:44Z")
Humans may tend towards prejudice, but having that instinct show by differentiating people by skin color is learned. I’m not perfect, but I grew up with a very racist grandfather who is convinced all the black people are robbing us and the Mexicans are stealing our jobs. From the moment I was born, my mother actively and aggressively countered these comments. I’ve sent most of my life in areas where Caucasians are the numeric minority, and four out of 30 years where basically everyone but me was black or Asian. I honestly don’t have a lot of automatic inner dialogue based on race. My husband constantly points out interracial couples and mixed race children (which strikes me as a little funny, because we are an interracial couple and he is a mixed race guy), and I honestly don’t see it. If he wasn’t pointing it out, the thought wouldn’t cross my mind unless the couple was decked out in sombreros and kente cloth or something. I’m sure I have higher order racial misconceptions and generalizations, but automatic racism just not the was my lizard brain swings. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/55 "2013-03-03T14:41:30Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > I’m not _that_ racist, but there is a piece of my head that is. I call it the lizard brain. I’m very biased in favour of the human race. > [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > In Obama’s run for his first term for the presidency you would here some people say “He speaks so well”. They thought they were paying him a compliment. They thought they weren’t being racist. > > But they were. That doesn’t make sense. Obama does speak well. Or you’re reading too much into it. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/56 "2013-03-03T15:24:58Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > That doesn’t make sense. Obama does speak well. Or you’re reading too much into it. As a European a lot of the media coverage re the earlier election was around Obamas eloquence as opposed to Bush’s perceived lack thereof. I don’t think race was really anything to do with it. I’m from Northern Ireland, our bigotry of choice is sectarianism, not racism. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/57 "2013-03-03T16:10:17Z")
> [@TheCrow](#): > > BTW, you Germans are the most racist pigs in the existence. Why, thank you! I do hope you realize the biting irony in that statement. ETA: Not sure what your post had to do with the video that I linked to, but whatever… ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/58 "2013-03-03T16:29:54Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > What I am trying to get at is that you should examine your own head. You DO have racist thoughts - don’t think you’re perfect. If you don’t examine them, they can persist. Everyone probably has irrational thoughts of some kind, but why are you so quick to diagnose everyone with specifically _racist_ thoughts? > [@](#): > > It may seem benign. It could be something like if you look at a guy and think, “He’s Mexican, I bet he’s a hard worker”. But that’s still racist. You ain’t perfect. And the fact that you would dismiss the idea so casually means to me that you haven’t even thought about it. You seem to want to make an argument like “no one is perfect; one possible imperfection is having racist thoughts; I have this imperfection; therefore everyone has racist thoughts; and denying this is self-delusion.” Since not everyone shares your background and set of experiences, saying “but _I_ have racist thoughts” doesn’t justify the universality you seek. > [@](#): > > This thread is about self reflection. Examining the imperfect thoughts in your own head. If your claim is that you never have imperfect thoughts, I call bullshit. No one is perfect. No one can avoid making snap judgments, sometimes based on appearance\* — that absolutely _doesn’t_ imply that everyone has racist thoughts. (\*For example, if I’m sitting in my university’s common area and a black guy approaches me, I’ll probably conclude that it’s an international student giving me another damned survey for an ESL class, because that’s what always happens. I’ve used the color of someone’s skin to make a judgment about him — but that’s not racist. ) ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/59 "2013-03-03T17:15:39Z")
> [@Blackberry](#): > > Anyone taken this [word association test](https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/featuredtask.html) before? I did a long time ago so I forget exactly what their categories are but it said something like that I was mild or moderately racist ☹ And I love black people (not all of them, just my daughter and boyfriend really. And Donald Glover.) > This struck me as way too funny. I just took this test, and apparently I hate white people the most, which is funny because I am white. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834/60 "2013-03-03T17:35:28Z")
Huh, apparently some people’s definitions of “a little bit” racist is different from mine. I really need to stop stereotyping Asian women as bad drivers, and perhaps need to let go of this idea that white males have the highest asshole quotient of any other possible race/gender combo (actually, that second thing might be true), but race generally doesn’t factor into how I think of people, and I have never thought to myself that interracial dating was wrong. So I’ve taken the implicit racism test, and apparently I apparently like black people the most (I’m black), then Hispanics and Asians just about the same, and white people the least. Hey, some of my best friends are white! Also, the blackpeopleloveus website is still around? Ha! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-is-a-little-bit-racist/651834.md?page=4)