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» babble   » walking the talk   » anti-racism news and initiatives   » Take the Harvard test - are you a racist?

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Author Topic: Take the Harvard test - are you a racist?
No Yards
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posted 26 May 2005 10:03 PM      Profile for No Yards   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
As seen on TV (CBC news)

edited to (proudly) add:

quote:
Your data suggest little or no automatic preference for White American relative to African American

[ 26 May 2005: Message edited by: No Yards ]
From: Defending traditional marriage since June 28, 2005 | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged
Reality. Bites.
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6718

posted 26 May 2005 10:13 PM      Profile for Reality. Bites.        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I wonder how biased the test itself is. It starts with good things and European things on the left, then switches European to the right. Basically it trains you to associate good things with being European. I wonder what the results would be like if it started the other way.
From: Gone for good | Registered: Aug 2004  |  IP: Logged
No Yards
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posted 26 May 2005 10:19 PM      Profile for No Yards   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I wasan't paying a lot of attention, but didn't it switch the good / bad, white / black, left / right to cover all possibilities?
From: Defending traditional marriage since June 28, 2005 | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged
Anchoress
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Babbler # 4650

posted 26 May 2005 11:10 PM      Profile for Anchoress     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Your data suggest little or no automatic preference for White American relative to African American

I got the same, but to me it's just another type of intelligence test; I went through the whole thing with just one ×, a result I ascribe to my experience taking association/coordination tests, not to my lack of racism.

From: Vancouver babblers' meetup July 9 @ Cafe Deux Soleil! | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
verbatim
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Babbler # 569

posted 26 May 2005 11:22 PM      Profile for verbatim   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yeah, I agree -- as is the case with many tests, this one tends to test how well you adapt to the test itself, once you understand the parameters.
From: The People's Republic of Cook Street | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Reality. Bites.
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6718

posted 26 May 2005 11:28 PM      Profile for Reality. Bites.        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by No Yards:
I wasan't paying a lot of attention, but didn't it switch the good / bad, white / black, left / right to cover all possibilities?


That's the thing. It has you practice associating white and good things with your left hand, then once you're used to that, it changes the way it works, then moves the white people over to the right, while leaving the good things on the left.

I suspect that if good things and black people were associated together at the start of the test and subsequently switched, we might see more people having a preference for blacks over whites.

I remember another test showing the names of colours spelled out in letters of another colour (i.e. "Blue" spelled out in red letters), and you had to pick a coloured square corresponding to what the word said, and how difficult it was.

From: Gone for good | Registered: Aug 2004  |  IP: Logged
Anchoress
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posted 26 May 2005 11:30 PM      Profile for Anchoress     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by verbatim:
Yeah, I agree -- as is the case with many tests, this one tends to test how well you adapt to the test itself, once you understand the parameters.

Yeah, exactly. I get EXTREMELY high marks for my ability to adapt to tests, and that's about as far as I'm willing to go. Just tell me the instructions and let me run.

After all, I am:

[ 26 May 2005: Message edited by: Anchoress ]
From: Vancouver babblers' meetup July 9 @ Cafe Deux Soleil! | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
ephemeral
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posted 26 May 2005 11:48 PM      Profile for ephemeral     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
test sez i've got a slight preference to white americans than to african americans. which is kinda funny cause at the beginning, i was afraid the test would be able to look deep down somewhere within me, and find that my opinions of extreme right-wing christians (famous ones i know are all white) and bush, cheney, wolfowitz, etc. have somehow, without me ever being consiously aware of it, turned me slightly against white americans. (that's not true - just my extreme paranoia which never fails to kick in at the start of a test).

the FAQ said that the slower you are to make a connection between a face and a race, the more racist you are against that race. i was slow on a lot of questions cause it's way past my bedtime, and i am absolutely pooped.

From: under a bridge with a laptop | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
GJJ
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posted 26 May 2005 11:55 PM      Profile for GJJ        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
My result was a slight preference for blacks, but I have to wonder about the test. Living in the prairies there are few blacks, and I'm not sure I have a particular attitude to them at all, either preference or antipathy ... out here racism centers around natives (about a quarter of the province's population is native). So as much as I'd like to think the test is a proof of my lack of racism, I'm not so sure.

It seems to be that my reactions got faster as I went along (ie my fingers became trained to react to the faces and values), so it was more a measure of my learning curve than any preferences.

From: Saskatoon | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
siren
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posted 27 May 2005 01:11 AM      Profile for siren     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Ahh, I too come up neutral on preferring white or black Americans. (Glad it couldn't detect prejudice against Americans of any old colour.)

I don't think it's very good at detecting what it purports to test. However, I think it might be a handy dandy tool to inculcate racism.

African American -- good, face, happy, face, . .

White American -- bad, face, nasty, face . . .

Now let's switch those concepts around and see what we can teach you.

[ 27 May 2005: Message edited by: siren ]
From: Of course we could have world peace! But where would be the profit in that? | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 27 May 2005 01:28 AM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
My results were:

Your data suggest little or no automatic preference for White American relative to Black American

From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 27 May 2005 01:29 AM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
RB can you pm yet?
From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Reality. Bites.
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6718

posted 27 May 2005 07:15 AM      Profile for Reality. Bites.        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
No
From: Gone for good | Registered: Aug 2004  |  IP: Logged

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