Canadian / American Study Finds High Tolerance for Racism - But Isn't That Realistic?

i have noticed this myself. americans see racism as freedom of speech. you are almost certain to find someone challenging you when you say something unpatriotic, but wont find many challengers if you make a racist statement. this isnt just against blacks either, i think you will find a lot of racist statements towards asians, hispanics, muslims, jews. i noticed a difference when i came to britain, where there is more restriction on racism which i find to be a good and progresive thing. its unfortunate that america is stuck in the stone age, despite obama being elected. its quite frightening when americans cant even grasp that racism is wrong and harmful towards civilisation. take a look at some of the racist websites out there, and you can be guaranteed that almost all of them are run by or hosted by americans.

I find this study worrying in that it appears to have been specifically designed only to measure reactions to one type of racism.  I feel that any results of such a study, taken at face value, are likely to be at best misleading, especially as participants have been segregated.  While it is clearly socially desirable that a representative presence of the racial or social group being targeted should not be necessary to elicit a negative response to a racist action in a non-member of that group, I feel, that even in this day and age, it is somewhat naive to expect such a response given the unrepresentative nature of the study.  It is all too easy to state: x did not respond to y's preprogrammed racist statement against z, and it had little/no apparent negative effect on x later selecting y over z as a work partner, however, what does this result really tell us?

I think lainad is absolutely correct that the question of reaction and more specifically of confrontation has to contain more shades of grey than (dare I say it) black, or white.  Several factors must be taken into account: witness reactions to racist comments will naturally differ if the intended target has left the room, (thereby removing the immediate social and/or moral need to defend the victim).   Reactions are far less likely to be confrontational if the comment is made by someone perceived to be presenting a potential physical or verbal threat to the witness.  People are naturally disinclined to disregard personal safety no matter the moral provocation.  This is a basic human survival instinct and very difficult to override.  Confrontation is also and perhaps especially unlikely if the witness is aware they will have to cooperate with the agressor during some unknown future activity.  Society thrives on tact and diplomacy.  Even a barefaced demonstration of prejudice is unlikely to cause someone to rock the boat unless the prejudice is against them and therefore posing a clear threat or challenge they are unable to ignore.

It is interesting that the exercise could be argued to be measuring the bravery, or courage of conviction of an individual from a different ethnic group, when confronted in a social setting with a verbal action one knows to be wrong.  The reported results, however two dimensional, are certainly in keeping with the history books, as they could be stereotypically applied to a number of examples of racism taken to extremes, (e.g. the genocide of the holocaust, Rwanda, Bosnia, etc.  It is clear from this study, that public reaction to manifest racism is not what would be morally desirable, however, this could be due to such a variety of factors, that the results, which may, if taken at face value, appear shocking, are not altogether surprising.

I wonder whether the results of the study would differ significantly if one replaced the racist comment with a verbal attack on someone with an apparent physical disability, or simply, if one redirected the racism to be anti-white, or antisemitic?  I wonder whether people would more readily involve themselves with an apparent threat of racially motivated violence?  I wonder how honest people really are with their responses, and what difference the race of the person conducting the study would have had on the truth or 'diplomacy' of their answers.

Whatever your response to these questions, the sad truth remains, racist behaviour of all kinds, perpetrated against all races is still rife within society today.

I love this post - I just did a similar one about how the media is reinforcing racism with their representation of Obama (http://www.blondesiview.com/2009/01/barack-obama-i... ( http://www.blondesiview.com/2009/01/barack-obama-i... )).  He's an AMERICAN - not a black man or an African-American.  It disturbs me that Dr. King's 'dream' is being misrepresented, and often by black people themselves as Biker Bernie suggests.  Its not about a black man in the office of the President - its about the right man - a man who is judged based on who he is and what he has accomplished, not the color of his skin.  When the media reinforces differences based on the color of one's skin, its no wonder that racism still exists.