Posted on 01/30/2006 3:58:43 PM PST by stm
On the Monday "Science" page of the Washington Post, reporter Shankar Vedantam offers the liberal Post readership some comforting news: studies show conservative voters are motivated by racism. That's not in the first paragraph. It sneaks in about halfway through the article, and explains the headline "Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases."
[T]hat study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.
"What automatic biases reveal is that while we have the feeling we are living up to our values, that feeling may not be right," said University of Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek, who helped conduct the race analysis. "We are not aware of everything that causes our behavior, even things in our own lives."
The Post can claim, hey, we at least let a spokesman for the RNC, Brian Jones, point out the scientists are Democrats.
He also questioned whether the researchers themselves had implicit biases -- against Republicans -- noting that Nosek and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji had given campaign contributions to Democrats.
"There are a lot of factors that go into political affiliation, and snap determinations may be interesting for an academic study, but the real-world application seems somewhat murky," Jones said.
But they end by quoting an apparently nonpartisan expert, Jon Krosnick of Stanford, who concludes that many studies prove the conservatives-are-racist thesis:
"If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial," he said. "We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, 'This takes me aback,' they are ignoring a huge volume of research."
Vedantam also publicized the same scientists -- and the same RNC spokesman -- in a Washington Post Magazine cover story a year ago. He did an online chat on that here.
Even the black conservatives? How about the Chinese conservatives? Or the Vietnamese conservatives? Are they all racist, too?
Analyses of tens of thousands of tests found 88 percent of white people had a pro-white or anti-black implicit bias; nearly 83 percent of heterosexuals showed implicit biases for straight people over gays and lesbians; and more than two-thirds of non-Arab, non-Muslim volunteers displayed implicit biases against Arab Muslims.
It doesn't sound like what they're talking about fits most definitions of "prejudice" or "bias." If you buy your child a blond white doll, rather than a black one, you probably qualify as prejudiced according to Banaji and Nosek.
When they say:
"It surprises me I have any preferences at all," she said. "By the work I do, by my education, my background. I'm progressive, and I think I have no bias. Being a minority myself, I don't feel I should or would have biases." -- Banaji
or
"What automatic biases reveal is that while we have the feeling we are living up to our values, that feeling may not be right," said University of Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek, who helped conduct the race analysis. "We are not aware of everything that causes our behavior, even things in our own lives." -- Nosek
I'd just as soon take them at their word: their own conclusions reveal hidden biases that they're not consciously aware of.
I imagine conservatives don't have politically correct responses/language memorized to express race talk. They are called racists when they say race has no meaning; only the content of one's character, etc. That kind of speech and idea is absent from today's liberal circles. It sounds tricky and strange to them because they are accustomed to left wing tribal slogans.
But no one should underestimate the Left's determination to regain power. They can not win through shutting down free speech - an arena where conservatives win; so they will try to make conservative ideas criminal and insane like in North Korea, China, USSR and Cuba.
Leftists do not share the ideals of freedom which would stop a conservative in power from doing this to liberals; the constitution is living to serve liberalism's total control and power. If elections get in the way; they will any means necessary to harm their opponents. That is what Marxists do; they have no tolerance for the evil ones who oppose them.
And they just can't get ahead without their help. Hogwash!
I'm conservative and I'm not a racist. I am a culturalist and I do discriminate. That's why I don't read the Washington Post, among other rags.
The conservatives have been voting against the plantation. The liberal have been voting for it. We have 40 years of the Great Society for proof. My study proves that conservatives think that the plantation workers can make it on their own, whereas the liberals look down upon the workers offering cash to increase their dependency.
"L" is for Liberal and "L" is for Liar.
Most of the liberals I knew from thirty years ago are as far away from the hood as they can possibly get.Their worlds are as"white"as the most rabid Klansman.
They pay their Mexican gardeners who tend to their acreage quite well,tho,from what I have heard
Apparently, after all they are conservatives right? According to this "scientific" study all us "neo-con's" are recists, remember????
They forgot to mention that it is the Left and the Democrats who support racial preferences these days.
Beware of those who claim to love you because of your skin color and show little interest in your character. It is there that we find the real racism.
INTREP
Wonder how klansman Byrd fits into their "scientific study".
Actually, this may be the most telling part of the article. Since all human beings are racist (to one degree or another), apparently Bush supporters are the most honest about it.
Republicans seem to be more comfortable in their own skin - and inherently more honest.
There is unbelievable irony in publishing a study about "racism" which attempts to assign negative qualities to an entire discrete group of people (so called "conservatives") who have been singled out for political purposes. The authors are treading damn close to racism themselves. The best example I can think of in which "science" was pressed into the service of maligning a particular group of citizens was in the 1940's, over in Nazi Germany.
Well, I do have a bias against, wrong, illogical, and anti-Americanism.
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