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Consider the following 3 true incidents:
- I’m taking a walk in the park when I find myself staring at 3 people suspiciously making their way through the bushes (well away from a walking path and about 100m away from me). I look again to discover they’re black. I wonder if I’d have glanced with suspicion if they weren’t black. I wonder how I’d have reacted to different kinds of people cutting through the bushes in a public park — and whether I noticed those 3 because I encounter almost no Africans in my daily life, whereas for people of European/East Asian/South Asian/Southeast Asian/Middle Eastern origin, I’d notice less since they’re far better represented in my city.
- I’m looking for a roommate about 18 months ago when I get an applicant who is very interested in the room. He says he’ll take it. I ask him where he’s from to which he answers Iran. I find myself telling him I’ll call him back. As soon as the door closes, I’m [very gloomily] wondering how much his origin, and the supposed associations with anti-semitism played a role in my delay. To be fair, I’d have been hard-pressed to give an on-the-spot answer to anyone. However it doesn’t feel good. I call him back straight away offering him the room and he turns out to be a pork-eating Muslim who’s never been to a mosque and who claims that there’s more alcohol, drugs and partying in Tehran than there ever were in Sydney.
- New east-Asian neighbours move into the apartment next to mine. The first night they’re quite loud at about midnight and there’s a bit of a chase outside the house between two of them. Right outside my bedroom window. I wonder if they’re dodgy people or are doing something dodgy or even if they’re having a domestic. I eye the peep hole waiting for anyone bruised to come out and confirm my suspicions. The next days something similar happens without the chase. I’ve yet to encounter them face to face. And then it occurs to me: are they just loud talkers? Is the mere fact that their loud conversation is in a language I don’t understand (and hence don’t know is non-violent) what’s making me think suspicious thoughts?
There’s an interesting parallel:
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Violence is discredited in the public sphere. Probably most people believe they’re simply incapable of violence. In reality, it’s very easy for most to be driven to violence. This gap between our self-perception and reality is dangerous. If you think you can never be violent, you’re less likely to be able to catch/stop yourself. If you don’t know how easy it is, you will underestimate the problem, not just in yourself but in others too. |
Racism is discredited in the public sphere. Probably most people believe they’re all but incapable of racism. In reality, there are often implicit tests that suggest embryonic racism. This gap between our self-perception and reality is dangerous. If you think you can never be racist, you’re less likely to be able to catch/stop yourself. If you don’t know how easy it is, you will underestimate this problem, not just in yourself but in others too. |
If you want to prevent racism, you have to go undercover and see it from the inside. However, given that we all have a brain that appears to be so easily suspicious of strangers and so easily driven to kill those who aren’t in the in group, this should not be too hard.
4 comments ↓
I find your reactions quite natural: we tend to, by instinct, have a reaction to something different from what we consider `normal’; it must be a biological need for self-preservation. But I also find your skepticism about them something that we expect every rational human being to do. That is, although nature may tell us “be cautious”, we don’t immediately react by engaging in war but think and stop short of, say, picking up a fight.
I have examples from my own: I find certain languages hard to listen to, especially when the listeners speak loudly. Of course, I don’t pick up a fight, but I do acknowledge (silently) the fact that those languages which have sounds (and sound patterns) very different from the ones I speak, appear somewhat “cacophonic” to me. (By the way, many non-Greeks think that when Greeks speak they are rude to one another; although this is certainly true to some extent, it is not so all the time.) Talking about different races, I find, say, Ethiopian women very attractive. But this has nothing to do with their colour. I thought about it and it probably has to do with the fact that their facial features resemble what I probably have in mind. At the same time, I find many women of another race (I won’t mention which, being politically correct) not so attractive. And this has nothing to do with me being racist. It has to do, I guess, with natural choices. In any case, I think I won’t hurt anyone despite my likes and dislikes. But, like you, I also think about my instinctive reactions and this, I hope, is a positive step towards utilizing the tools that natural selection equipped us with.
I’m a bit suspicious of rationalising away some of these by saying that they’re “natural” or “normal” (see http://anadder.com/the-problem-of-innateness) so I’ve tried to tone it down. We can be mindful of these regardless of the [quite] complex research into the question of how much of these are biological.
In terms of language, I think it’s a case of exposure. When I was a child in Russia, I remember being terrified of two African immigrants because they were speaking a foreign language — I don’t think I ever heard a language I didn’t understand before. Now in Sydney, I tend to find languages that I hear lots to be musical even if I didn’t before. I think attractiveness might be the same, to an extent.
I quite agree with you. Please don’t misinterpret my intention. That’s why I put the word “normal” in quotes. As for attractiveness and the music of a language: being exposed to people/environments/situations that are different from the ones we are used to helps in understanding, liking, loving. At least, I think so. Could that not be an explanation of the fact that many (but of course not all) racists are people who’ve never stepped outside their village?
To be fair, I don’t think normal needs the scare quotes since it is only a convention. I’m not sure about racists being more sheltered though — it seems like conventional wisdom but it’s not something I’ve seen data on. I imagine for many racists exposing them to other cultures will only make their racism worse — although I agree for most people it has the opposite effect.
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