Emma took Project Implicit's race test

Emma also has a bias for African Americans. That makes three "white" people I know who aren't, according to Project Implicit, in the 75 to 80 percent of whites who are biased toward European Americans. That Emma and I should test the same at first seems like another sign we're meant for each other, but my suspicion is that since she's a musician, a writer, and a socialist, it's highly likely that she would have a bias for African-Americans.

I wish whites who say all whites are racist would take the test. It might confirm their belief that they are racist, or it might give them what would either be a pleasant surprise or, depending on the degree of their belief, a troubling insight.

ETA: I also wonder how many black Critical Race Theorists have a bias for European Americans. Project Implicit says 50% of all blacks who take the test favor whites.

more Nicholas Brothers, plus Dorothy Dandrige

a fat fact

Heavier Americans Push Back on Health Debate:

Two-thirds of all Americans are overweight or obese. In four states — Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia — more than 30 percent of adults are obese. In 1991, in contrast, no state had an obesity rate over 20 percent.

And, according to the American Obesity Association, a research organization, poor minority women have the greatest likelihood of being overweight.

Glenn Miller ft. Nicholas Bros. I've Got A Gal In Kalamazoo

Glenn Miller ft. Nicholas Bros. I've Got A Gal In Kalamazoo:

Hugh Laurie - Minnie the Moocher

free fiction: Black Rock Blues, Dream Catcher, and more

I just posted by "Black Rock Blues" from The Coyote Road and three very short stories of mine at stories by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly.

Ricky Gervais Extras: The Racist Test

The Racist Test:

if you want gay marriage

History suggests you have to repeal "don't ask, don't tell" first. Truman issued an Executive Order ending segregation in the military in 1948. Loving v. Virginia didn't legalize interracial marriage until 1967.

Night witches

Night witches: "Russia's three all-female air regiments flew more than 30,000 missions along the Eastern Front in WWII. At home they were known as Stalin's Falcons, but terrified German troops called them the Night Witches."

via Pamela D Lloyd

Yes We Can-Corporate Hope

via douglain

people may even be less racist than Project Implicit implies

from In Bias Test, Shades of Gray:

In a series of scathing critiques, some psychologists have argued that this computerized tool, the Implicit Association Test, or I.A.T., has methodological problems and uses arbitrary classifications of bias. If Barack Obama’s victory seemed surprising, these critics say, it’s partly because social scientists helped create the false impression that three-quarters of whites are unconsciously biased against blacks.

As Shaking the foundations of the hidden bias test notes,

This has been one part of an ongoing debate that has suggested that the IAT is not all it's cracked up to be, while the originators of the test have fired back with the heavyweight review [pdf] of over 100 studies, defending their position and the IAT's credentials.

The debate is important because the IAT has become one of psychology's central tools for separating conscious and unconscious associations and has been applied to pretty much everything from racism to diagnosing psychopaths.

So Project Implicit may be right, or their critics may be right, but either way, the Critical Race Theorists and Whiteness Students are, to be kind, mistaken in their belief that everyone's racist.

(Thanks, serialbabbler, for pointing me to the Mind Hacks link!)

Li'l Cthulhu

more about Project Implicit, plus families hitting the road

I've been thinking about Project Implicit's conclusion that I'm a little prejudiced in favor of African Americans and a little against Christians. I expected the reverse, because I had bought into the theory that we're all at least a tiny bit racist in favor of our cultural group. But when another "white" friend was also indicated as favoring African Americans (though she favored Christians), I realized that my assumption was nonsense. Our biases come from our understanding of our culture, not from our culture itself.

Project Implicit also rejects the theory that everyone is racist in favor of their race: "75-80% of self-identified Whites and Asians show an implicit preference for racial White relative to Black."

Saying everyone is racist is nonsense. Saying three-fourths of the population is racist might be accurate.

Also: In a tough economy, many are trading their houses for RVs and the highway: Play the video. I was wondering if the kids were sincere, until I saw the son speak.

ETA: Just noticed that I used "nonsense" twice here. I think that was because I hesitated to use "bullshit." Project Implicit's studies strengthen my conviction that ideological anti-racists who insist we're all racist are just trying to rationalize their recognition of their own racism.

ETA 2: I recommend Project Implicit's FAQ, especially questions 8 and 9:

Is the common preference for White over Black in the Black-White attitude IAT a simple 'ingroup' preference?

Do Black participants show a preference for Black over White on the race attitude IAT?

ETA 3: About the participants for Project Implicit:

The participants at Project Implicit form a sample that is generally more diverse than those found in traditional laboratory studies. Below are approximate percentages broken down by gender and ethnicity:

Female: 62%; Male: 38%
American Indian: 1%
Asian: 6.3%
Black/African-American: 6.8%
Hispanic: 5.1%
White/Caucasian: 72%
Multiracial: 4.8%
Other: 3.7%

Israel keeps up Palestinian evictions 04 Nov 09

Tenggren's D'aulnoy

From Tenggren's D'aulnoy:

And, continuing the tour of curious images of black folks by white folks:

bonus post

John Arkansawyer says this comic is "like if Randall Munroe (of XKCD) had a degree in theology."

From Too Much Weekly:

Daring to Diss 'Equality of Opportunity'

Rebecca Hickman, In Pursuit of Egalitarianism: and why social mobility cannot get us there. Compass, London. September, 2009. 28 pp.

Just over a half-century ago, in 1958, a progressive British political activist wrote a futuristic satire entitled The Rise of the Meritocracy. The author, Michael Young, imagined himself in the year 2034, in a society where an “aristocracy of talent” had replaced “an aristocracy of birth.”

Young meant his work as a warning — against letting those “judged to have merit of a particular kind” calcify into a smug new ruling elite.

But Young’s satire never stuck. Instead, the word he coined — “meritocracy” — has become a shorthand for the society that we’re all supposed to want to see.

“I believe in equality of opportunity,” our politicians intone whenever they’re angling for a cheap applause line. “I don’t believe in equality of results.”

Enter Rebecca Hickman, a public policy analyst who used to run the government relations office for London's mayor. Hickman no longer mindlessly applauds when politicos earnestly pledge to help people — of “talent and resolve” — climb the “ladder of opportunity.” In this masterfully argued new pamphlet, she explains why, in a punchy prose that leaves no prisoners.

“By its own logic,” Hickman notes early on, “equality of opportunity as both goal and method does not make sense.”

Today's elected leaders, Hickman relates, regularly employ “meritocracy” as a rhetorical hook for avoiding issues around the distribution of income and wealth. But real equality of opportunity, she shows, requires that “everyone starts from the same point and has equal prospects of progressing.”

And that requires, for a truly “fair” race up the economic ladder, a high level of equality right at the outset.

Hickman’s pages delightfully demolish the sloppy reasoning of those who tout “opportunity” as the ultimate yardstick for social decency. Along the way, she also introduces questions that force us to face the morality of fixating on opportunity at the expense of all else.

“Meritocracy,” she writes, “fails to create a more just society because at best it is about removing the obstacles from the paths of those who have the energy and luck to be able to make the most of their talents, and at worst, it is about social Darwinism, the survival of the fittest and the demise of the rest.”

So what’s the alternative to meritocracy? Hickman outlines a dozen steps, from affordable higher education to progressive taxation, “to put right the accidents of birth,” to ensure everyone the “freedom to be valued and to know dignity.”

“Social justice must go so much deeper than simply clearing the way for those who are able and tenacious,” she observes. “It is above all about how we look after those who may have less to contribute, who encounter bad luck, or who simply make mistakes.”

And if we took this broader responsibility seriously, everyone would benefit, even the awesomely affluent who might become somewhat less awesome.

A redistribution of society’s resources “that enables the poorest in our society to have access to the external sources of dignity — a decent income, a comfortable home, a pleasant neighborhood, first-class education, and health care — will cost the wealthiest in terms of their disposable income,” as Hickman points out, “but not in terms of their happiness.”

“Redistribution and collective responsibility are not zero-sum games where the more we share with others the less we have for ourselves,” sums up this engaging brief for equality. “They are ways of living and of being that mean we are all better off.”

And, if you care about education under capitalism: The Tree Trunks Are Rotting in the Groves of Academe

Midnight Girl update, mostly for my proofreaders

Many thanks to the proofreaders, both for what they caught and for what they suggested! Here's my current list of names for the acknowledgments page:

glinda, Thomas Bull, jenstclair, gailmom, Pamela Dean, Mad Gastronomer, glad2dance, Cyn Horton, Ann Lemay, J. Brundage, Anne KG Murphy, David Dyer-Bennet

No need to send anything if your name is listed correctly, but if it's wrong, either leave a comment here or email shetterly at gmail.com. The deadline is Tuesday at midnight, Arizona time.

I'm not sure yet when I'll release the official version of the book. I want to do a little more with Cat and Tarika's relationship at the end of the story, even if that's only a few lines, and I want to take a last, hard look at the first two chapters.

I'm deleting the public file of version 0.9 now.

ETA: I'll delete it tomorrow. What's currently there is 0.91, which incorporates the comments to date.

linkies

Questionable Content: Salutations from DyreWolff: For those who keep up on the scifi and YA genres.

23 Private College Presidents Made More Than $1 Million

A racist comic story from the '50s that says so much about the conservatives of that time: Cave Girl and the Mau Mau. It won't teach you much about the real Mau Mau Uprising. If you're obsessive, compare it with Cave Girl in 'The Devil Boat!' There, whites are the bad guys, and the black cops are good guys, but they're still drawn like Sambos.

I liked the logic of this panel from the Mau Mau story:

ETA: I forgot that on the internet, no one knows you're ironic. "Liked" should be read with your sarcasm detector on.

read

Twenty Years Ago, One Hit Changed Two Lives Forever