{"id":49509,"date":"2014-12-02T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T18:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=49509"},"modified":"2014-12-02T12:16:28","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T18:16:28","slug":"a-world-full-of-we-ists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=49509","title":{"rendered":"A World Full Of We-Ists"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the wake of the unrest in Ferguson – just as in the wake of the Martin-Zimmerman incident, and every other racial episode in recent memory – there’s been a call for a “dialogue about race”.<\/p>\n

Of course, the “dialogue” that most people are calling for involves one side doing all the talking, and the other shutting up and taking whatever’s dished out.<\/p>\n

Not that listening isn’t a bad idea. \u00a0I’ve long since found that when the subject is race, I’m much better off listening than talking.<\/p>\n

One of the few substantive things I’ve ever had to say, when I\u00a0do\u00a0<\/em>talk about the subject, is that everyone in the world is a “we-ist”; that everyone on this planet comes practically from the womb more comfortable around, forgiving of, and accepting of people who look, sound and act like them.<\/p>\n

And it’s not just my theory. \u00a0No.\u00a0\u00a0It’s settled science<\/a>\u2122:<\/p>\n

Science has bad news, though, for anyone who claims to not see race: They’re deluding themselves, say several bias experts. A body of scientific research over the past 50 years shows that people notice not only race but gender, wealth, even weight.<\/p>\n

When babies are as young as 3 months old, research shows they start preferring to be around people of their own race, says Howard J. Ross, author of “Everyday Bias” …<\/p>\n

Other studies confirm the power of racial bias, Ross says.<\/p>\n

One study conducted by a Brigham Young University economics professor showed that white NBA referees call more fouls on black players, and black referees call more fouls on white players. Another study that was published in the American Journal of Sociology showed that newly released white felons experience better job hunting success than young black men with no criminal record, Ross says.<\/p>\n

“Human beings are consistently, routinely and profoundly biased,” Ross says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And humans being humans, they ladle all sorts of learned behavior on top of that human trait, down to the languages they learn; some languages codify “we-ism”; Farsi and Lakota are two examples of languages where the world for “person” gets less and less complimentary, the more removed from one’s own tribe the “person” comes from.<\/p>\n

And it’s everyone, not just white people. \u00a0And it shows; middle class blacks get uncomfortable around white bikers; Koreans are leery of Latinos. \u00a0Pick your combination; whoever you and they are, everyone is wired to keep people who are different from them at arm’s length.<\/p>\n

That, of course, is never part of the proposed “dialog about race”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of the unrest in Ferguson – just as in the wake of the Martin-Zimmerman incident, and every other racial episode in recent memory – there’s been a call for a “dialogue about race”. Of course, the “dialogue” that most people are calling for involves one side doing all the talking, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ebony-and-ivory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49509"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49511,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49509\/revisions\/49511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}