A Nation of Cowards?

Charles Blow, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, had a column today on racism. It was an interesting column and worth reading, but it bothered me that he only focused on white racism towards blacks and ignored a near similar amount of racism by Asians and Hispanics towards blacks. This is at least according to the charts presented. So I submitted a comment criticizing Blow for this. It was an Editor's Selection, and it received 14 reader recommendations. Woo hoo! It's amazing that there are people who read that far into the comments. There were 300+, mine being a little over the 100th. Here it is:

It is bothersome to me that whites apparently have a hidden bias, but it bothers me as well that Mr. Blow in this piece glaringly omits the bias of Asians and Hispanics. According to the Project Implicit graphic, Asians and Hispanics are not far behind whites in their bias and so almost as vastly different as whites are from blacks in a lack of bias. So why does Mr. Blow just focus on whites? It is unfair to focus just on whites when Asians and Hispanics are almost as bad in their bias. Mr. Blow wants to talk about the facts. Well, he should then acknowledge the bias in Asians and Hispanics as well. Focusing just on whites can create a resentment among whites and lead to a less constructive discussion.

I went to the Project Implicit website that Blow references, and it's quite an interesting site. One can take a number of rather fun tests. I took three tests, one about political preference, one I've already forgotten, and the one on racial bias. For anyone reading the above comment, it should come as no surprise that the racial bias test results had me having a strong automatic preference for whites over blacks. The results were based upon how quickly I related photos of black and white people with favorable and unfavorable words. The test started with whites and good words grouped together and blacks and bad words grouped together. Then the groupings were swapped. The website determined that I was slower associating the good words with blacks than I had with whites. I don't know. I thought the switching of the groupings may have messed me up and not made me more neutral. However, I did answer one question on I think it was comfortableness where I as neutral for blacks and had a slight positive towards whites. I was just being honest, but that may have been the key to the results.

I don't think of myself as being racist, but perhaps there is some bias. The question is is bias the same as racism, or is bias a step towards racism. Bias can result from just what one is used to. I grew up in a white neighborhood, went to white schools, and pretty much have white friends. I get along with blacks at work, but admittedly, I don't have any black friends with whom I socialize. I have dated black women and even had a black girlfriend for about a year. I also voted for Barack Obama. Take that, Project Implicit! Anyway, view the test results with what you think they're worth.