Behavior modifacation vs racism

[Plane]

  There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life,? Jesse Jackson once told an audience, ?than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery?then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.?

Jackson?s remark illustrates a basic fact of our social existence, one that even a committed black civil-rights leader cannot escape: ideas that we may not endorse?for example, that a black stranger might harm us but a white one probably would not?can nonetheless lodge themselves in our minds and, without our permission or awareness, color our perceptions, expectations and judgments.

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Using a variety of sophisticated methods, psychologists have established that people unwittingly hold an astounding assortment of stereotypical beliefs and attitudes about social groups: black and white, female and male, elderly and young, gay and straight, fat and thin. Although these implicit biases inhabit us all, we vary in the particulars, depending on our own group membership, our conscious desire to avoid bias and the contours of our everyday environments. For instance, about two thirds of whites have an implicit preference for whites over blacks, whereas blacks show no average preference for one race over the other.

Such bias is far more prevalent than the more overt, or explicit, prejudice that we associate with, say, the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis. That is emphatically not to say that explicit prejudice and discrimination have evaporated nor that they are of lesser importance than implicit bias. According to a 2005 federal report, almost 200,000 hate crimes?84 percent of them violent?occur in the U.S. every year.

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Now researchers are probing deeper. They want to know: Where exactly do such biases come from? How much do they influence our outward behavior? And if stereotypes and prejudiced attitudes are burned into our psyches, can learning more about them help to tell each of us how to override them?

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Because closely associated concepts are essentially linked together in a person?s mind, a person will be faster to respond to a related pair of concepts?say, ?hammer and nail??than to an uncoupled pair, such as ?hammer and cotton ball.? The timing of a person?s responses, therefore, can reveal hidden associations such as ?black and danger? or ?female and frail? that form the basis of implicit prejudice. ?One of the questions that people often ask is, ?Can we get rid of implicit associations?? ? says psychologist Brian A. Nosek of the University of Virginia. ?The answer is no, and we wouldn?t want to. If we got rid of them, we would lose a very useful tool that we need for our everyday lives.?


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In addition, people who report a strong personal motivation to be nonprejudiced tend to harbor less implicit bias. And some studies indicate that people who are good at using logic and willpower to control their more primitive urges, such as trained meditators, exhibit less implicit bias. Brain research suggests that the people who are best at inhibiting implicit stereotypes are those who are especially skilled at detecting mismatches between their intentions and their actions.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=buried-prejudice-the-bigot-in-your-brain

[Plane]

http://science-community.sciam.com/blog-entry/Mind-Matters/Harvard-Students-Perceive-Rednecks-Neural/300008563

How does the brain differentiate those who are similar to us from those who are different? Does it analyze differences in skin color, language, religion, height, eye color, foot size? Does it discriminate cat versus dog lovers, Pepsi versus Coke drinkers, Shiite versus Sunni, Crips versus Bloods?

In a way, the brain does all this and more by simply distinguishing those who don't meet various definitions of who we are. Specifically, a forebrain area called the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) appears to predict the behavior of members of outgroups by employing prejudices about their presumed background -- assumptions we make, in other words, based on what groups their various traits and contexts seem to put them in or out of. In this sense, outsiders, or those in outgroups, include humans of dissimilar cultural or ethnic identities or any other perceived stereotyped dissimilarity from your own self-identified groups, as well as non-human agents such as cartoons and animals and even inanimate moving objects. We distinguish otherness by all sorts of indicators, from the seemingly obviously, like sex or race, to the more obviously cultural, such as whether a person is wearing, say, a Yankees cap, a Dodgers cap, or a tee-shirt that says Baseball Sucks.

The focus of the paper under review here focuses less on the cues than on the brain areas that respond to them. The authors detailed the function of a particularly important brain area while studying the neural correlates of "mentalizing." Mentalizing is the ability to predict how other people will behave in a given situation. It combines the powers of theory of mind (our ideas about what other people know and do not know) with the presumptions that we hold about people with dissimilar backgrounds. Some researchers believe that mentalizing is a function of the brain's mirror neuron system, allowing us to predict the behavior of others by simulating how other people may feel in a given situation.

You might be a redneck if? you activate a Harvard student's dorsal mPFC

The experimenters used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of Harvard and other Boston-area students while showing them pictures of other college-age people whom the researchers randomly described as either liberal northeastern students or conservative Midwest fundamentalist Christian students. The categories were a ruse. The pictures were actually downloaded from an online dating website and randomly assigned to the two groups (which were an invention of the researchers), with each group holding similar racial and gender mixes. The experimental participants, however, thought each person pictured really was from one group or the other because the experimenters contrived demographic information about each photo; this information was randomly reassigned to different pictures with each new experimental subject. The participants, then, were confronted with pictures of people who had randomly generated but coherent cultural and political identities already attached to them.

[Plane]

http://goblinscomic.com/d/20051015.html

[Universe Prince]

but the category you place this creature in holds more importance to you than the individual creature.

I'd use that in arguments against the "Muslim Peril" but I'm sure someone would tell me I'm ignoring the "real" nature of the Muslim threat.

[Plane]

but the category you place this creature in holds more importance to you than the individual creature.

I'd use that in arguments against the "Muslim Peril" but I'm sure someone would tell me I'm ignoring the "real" nature of the Muslim threat.

Yes you are , if you ignore that orthodox Islam places you and I in such a catagory as a matter of dogma.

[Universe Prince]

Yes you are , if you ignore that orthodox Islam places you and I in such a catagory as a matter of dogma.

I'm not.

[Plane]

Yes you are , if you ignore that orthodox Islam places you and I in such a catagory as a matter of dogma.

I'm not.

Then you know it is true that Racism is a complicated thing.

As soon as you escape someone elseses racism you trip over your own , or destroying some measure of your own racism you become the victim of someone eleses.

The Religious persecution that the Islamist feels is not entirely fiction , but I would disagree withthem that it excuses the drastic form of intolerance they carry themselves.

[Universe Prince]

Then you know it is true that Racism is a complicated thing.

No, it really is not. People are complicated. Racism is simple. Again, "the category you place this creature in holds more importance to you than the individual creature." Don't confuse the individual with the category.

[Plane]

Then you know it is true that Racism is a complicated thing.

No, it really is not. People are complicated. Racism is simple. Again, "the category you place this creature in holds more importance to you than the individual creature." Don't confuse the individual with the category.

That may be true , it may define Racism succinctly,but it suggests nothing about causes or solutions.

Racism seems to be a human trait , reduced or controlled best volentarily.

Someone who is attempting to avoid being a racist may succeed but that person still has to deal with racism in others includeing racism directed his way and racism he can take advantage of .

[Universe Prince]

That may be true , it may define Racism succinctly,but it suggests nothing about causes or solutions.

That doesn't mean those are necessarily complex.

Racism seems to be a human trait , reduced or controlled best volentarily.

I don't buy it. Recognizing some people are different is not racism any more than recognizing that some people have yellow hair. Yes, getting rid of implicit associations would be bad, but that doesn't mean all implicit associations are necessarily negative implicit prejudices. If you want to say discrimination is a human trait, that would make more sense, because not all discrimination is bad or hateful.

[_JS]

I completely disagree that "racism is complicated."

It is very simple. It reminds me of people who defend the CSA by pointing out how complex the political situation was at the time and how difficult the historical problems were for the South.

They are right of course, in that it was a complex situation. Yet, it centered around one single issue. There was a famous (or infamous is perhaps the better term) speech presented by Vice President of the CSA Alexander Stephens known as the "Cornerstone Speech." In it he explained the difference in the CSA Constitution and the U.S. Constitution. Of particular importance was the cornerstone:

The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution ? African slavery as it exists amongst us ? the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted.

(Jefferson's) ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. ... Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner?stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery ? subordination to the superior race ? is his natural and normal condition.

That is racism. Simple. The "cornerstone" of the Confederacy. The Christians used it against the Jews for centuries. The Roma are constant victims of racism. The Muslims and Hispanics from Central America are in the on-deck circle for American whites to dish out there daily dose of scapegoat assault and battery. There's no complexity there.

It is dangerous, perverse, disgusting, inhumane, and the people who deal in it damage themselves and their communities. What are Philadelphia, MS and Selma, AL famous for today? Being racist shitholes from the 60's. Hell, the entire state of Mississippi is tainted with that moniker, deserved or not. The entire South, and we've seen it here, is often painted in that broad brush. And let's face it...it still very much exists here too.

So, no, I don't buy the "racism is complex" line. In fact, it is too simple. It is made for simple minds to accept and easily use.

[Plane]

If racism is simple then it is also simple that Islam is directing religious intolerance twards the Non -Islamic.

It isn't that simple, and it is quite often a mutual problem that is hard to adress on both sides at the same time , but impossible to cure unilaterally.

[Universe Prince]

If racism is simple then it is also simple that Islam is directing religious intolerance twards the Non -Islamic.

Ahem, "the category you place this creature in holds more importance to you than the individual creature." You're focusing on the category and losing sight of the individuals.

It isn't that simple, and it is quite often a mutual problem that is hard to adress on both sides at the same time , but impossible to cure unilaterally.

The problem with your statement is not that it is not that simple, but that "Islam is directing religious intolerance twards the Non -Islamic" is not true. People are directing tolerance or intolerance. While many may argue that Islam is inherent intolerant, there are other who will argue that such is a matter of interpretation, both of language and meaning. For example, "jihad" does not necessarily always mean "holy war". As I understand it, it can be used to mean simply a spiritual struggle on a personal level. We do ourselves a disservice to assume that Islam is the problem and not the people.

[Plane]

If racism is simple then it is also simple that Islam is directing religious intolerance twards the Non -Islamic.

Ahem, "the category you place this creature in holds more importance to you than the individual creature." You're focusing on the category and losing sight of the individuals.

It isn't that simple, and it is quite often a mutual problem that is hard to adress on both sides at the same time , but impossible to cure unilaterally.

The problem with your statement is not that it is not that simple, but that "Islam is directing religious intolerance twards the Non -Islamic" is not true. People are directing tolerance or intolerance. While many may argue that Islam is inherent intolerant, there are other who will argue that such is a matter of interpretation, both of language and meaning. For example, "jihad" does not necessarily always mean "holy war". As I understand it, it can be used to mean simply a spiritual struggle on a personal level. We do ourselves a disservice to assume that Islam is the problem and not the people.

This whole week what individual were we discussing?
France?
I absolutely recognise the individuals role as the basic unit of humanity , the level on which all thinking occurs , if you want to discuss an individual we will then be discussing an individual.

But we were not , Human beings are social and ordinarily form bands , large groups and nations which are entitys that are worthy of discussion in their own right.

There is  a rather large group that actually does interpret "Jihad" as holy war , each individual of this group is hidden in the larger less harmfull group where many people of good will would like to live in peace , but do not recognise any duty to prevent the subgroup from conqurering territory.

So the individuals that have interpreted "jihad" to mean kill some infidels have banded together , is it impossible to discuss the band?

 The ones who interpret "jihad" as "struggle internally for self improvement"(try to prove this with the Koran, it is a stretch, but I can appreaciate those willing to make the stretch)deserve the peace they build .

[Universe Prince]

This whole week what individual were we discussing?
France?

I believe I was discussing individuals while other people were trying to convince me that the category was all that was important.

So the individuals that have interpreted "jihad" to mean kill some infidels have banded together , is it impossible to discuss the band?

Of course not. But when you say "Islam is directing religious intolerance twards the Non -Islamic", you're not discussing a band of individuals, are you? You're making blanket statements about a rather broad category.