Test Your Unconscious Biases!

[queerbychoice]

Finally, a set of personality tests that are actually worth taking!

Age Bias—Do you prefer the young or the elderly? This test measures the automatic association between the young and old and positive and negative concepts.
Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for young.
[Hmm. I took this test first because it felt the least scary; I didn't think I had any preference.]

Racial Bias: Asian Americans—This test probes for an automatic stereotype that Asian Americans are not as "American" as European Americans.
Your data suggest little or no automatic ethnic association with American or Foreign.
[Yay, so I did learn something from having grown up with all Asian friends instead of Euro ones!]

Gender Bias—This stereotype test measures the strength of automatic association between women and men and the concepts "liberal arts" and "science."
Your data suggest a strong automatic association between male and science.
[This test was by far the most overwhelmingly difficult for me of any of them. I was pretty sure ahead of time that I'd get a rotten score, I was still shocked to find out just HOW extremely incapable I am of associating "female" with "science," no matter how hard I try. Off to feminist reeducation boot camp with me!]

Body Image Bias—Using drawings of people who vary in weight, this test measures automatic attitudes about obese people.
Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for fat.
[Cool! Maybe now all the people who keep annoying me by constantly declaring themselves "too fat" will shut up and start trying not to get too skinny for fear I won't prefer them anymore.]

Racial Bias: Weapons—This test measures the automatic association of weapons and harmless objects with Black and White adult faces.
Your data suggest a moderate automatic association between White and weapons.
[Um, actually I'm not used to seeing members of ANY race carrying weapons around in my everyday life.]

Racial Bias: Arab Muslims—This test measures the automatic association of Arab Muslims with positive and negative words.
Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for Arab Muslims.
[Well, hey, all the Arab Muslims I ever went to school with were cool . . .]

Racial Bias: Black/White Children—This test measures unconscious or automatic associations of "good" and "bad" with Black and White children.
Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for White children.
[Bad me. I put off the Black/White tests until the end (except the Weapons one) because I knew I'd do well on any measurement of racism involving other races, but not so well on the ones involving racism against Black people. In California, there's always a good healthy and reasonably integrated mix of all races except Black, which is still extremely segregated. We even have a convenient naming system for segregated neighborhoods around here: any neighborhood that's 75%-100% Black is named after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and any neighborhood that's 50%-75% Black is named after Abraham Lincoln, just so everybody knows which races are allowed to live where and all. I currently live in the Lincoln neighborhood, but my unconscious biases are unfortunately more influenced by having been raised across the river in the No Black People Allowed neighborhood.]

Racial Bias: Black/White Adults—This test measures unconscious or automatic associations of "good" and "bad" with black and white people.
Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for White.
[Ack, even worse me.]

Racial Bias: Skin-Tone—Do you prefer darker or lighter skin tones? This test measures automatic preference for skin color using faces that vary in skin tone and positive and negative words.
Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for lighter skin.
[Well, this is the only test result that I really feel is inaccurate. I do have definite skin tone preferences, I know, but my perception of skin color is divided for some reason very much into three categories of "light, middle, and dark," so the binary light-dark division presented on this test didn't really jive with the way I actually mentally perceive people - on top of which, the drawings on this test were really awful, and the fake drawn-in skin tones were not realistic looking at all. But I do have definite skin tone preferences in real life: I know that if I walk into a room full of strangers and I need to pick one of them to talk to, I invariably approach someone of medium skin color, with brown eyes and dark hair, and most of the time it's someone who is neither White nor Black. If there's anyone Asian in the room, especially, I'll always go to an Asian person first, because I've gotten used to thinking of Asian people as "the people I fit in with" and of Euro-Americans as "the people who have an annoying habit of mistaking me for one of them, and who I have to push away and put in their place for fear they'll succeed in actually making me one of them."]

What are YOUR Unconscious Biases?

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P.S. In other, less important online personality test news, apparently I am a strawberry.

Comments

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I've been forced to work 20 hours of overtime this week and on the rare occasions when I'm home and have AIM access for a few minutes before collapsing into bed, you're not around anyway. But in truth, maybe it's just that I'm exhausted but I find it hard to sustain interest in this conversation anymore. I will respond to this message but not to any further ones unless I see some reason to believe that further interaction will produce any different results.

"And I never sought you out as a teacher anyway."

Oh, so you're into black/white teacher/non-teacher dichotomies, are you? There are things you can learn from everyone and things you can teach to everyone. For someone as into non-Western modes of thought as you claim to be to fail to recognize something as basic as that is astonishing and appalling. Must be a sign of your Western education and upbringing having taken root more deeply than you'd like to admit.

"You haven't hit on one thing you can teach me."

On the contrary: you have not recognized one thing I can teach you. You were not aware of the industry which makes money off of stealing boys' foreskins; I was, and I never even had one. You were not able to recognize the sentencing of male criminals to wear dresses as a sexist act: you could not even see the difference between calling that sentencing sexist and claiming that voluntary drag is sexist (which it can be, if used like blackface for purposes of parody, but it usually isn't).

"You can be as Asian-identified as you like, it does not erase the fact that you are perceived as a white woman and granted privilege thusly."

I know that; I stated that already. However, even if I were an Asian woman, do not delude yourself that this would magically make me any less racist against your race either: several of my Asian friends have shocked me by being even more racist against your race than I am. Some of them are also racist against themselves; the popularity of surgeries to acquire Caucasian-looking eyelids is appalling, and you cannot even imagine what it felt like to me to find out that the woman I loved more than anyone, my best friend of nine years, had spontaneously sneaked away to a surgeon one day without telling me and had the face that I loved surgically mutilated because she didn't think it was as good as mine - the helplessness of having my own face used by my loved ones to tell themselves they're not as good as I am: this is one of the pains of racism that only white people. And she was not the only friend of mine who got this operation done. It is a common operation, and when I cried over it my friends told me that I was being racist, that I had no respect for the Korean cultural custom of getting eyelid surgery to look more Caucasian - that snce this operation is so popular in Korea it must be a good way of showing loyalty to one's Korean heritage.

"You know nothing of my body nor what marks me feminine. *smiles* You know nothing about the hormones I have taken."

To take hormones does not give you the social experience of being female. To be perceived as female in public does give you some social experience of being female; but it is not equivalent to the social experience of being raised female all your life, from your earliest childhood. You would be extremely foolish to pretend to yourself that it is equivalent to that.

"You don't need to tell me, in so many words, that you have 'Black friends' -- poor, poor move."

I do not have 'Black friends.' I have never had 'Black friends.' I have been very honest about that at all times. I have, however, been able to have more worthwhile conversations with 'Black people' on occasion than I have been able to have with you - though I did have one or two worthwhile conversations with you a while back, which is the only reason I've bothered being saddened by the current state of affairs.

2

[cuedus.livejournal.com]

Your idea of racism is flawed, but that is understandable. In America, to properly understand and look at race means white people would have to be made to see that which they don't want to see.

Racism is not the same thing as prejudice, bigotry, or discrimination.

Racism is race prejudice + power. Without power, race prejudice is "individualized". What power does is to make ones race prejudice into law or make law or pass laws that reflect the race prejudice. In America, the dominant culture is European and Euro-Americans... or "white" and so the only people who can be racist, who indeed have the power to be racist are white people.

So when you talk about your Asian-American friends who have had eye surgery, you are not witnessing them being racist against themselves, you are witnessing the very real effects of racism on people of color. And this is just one of its manifestations! Cornell West calls this "colluding with Western culture", however, in anti-racist lingo, this is called internalized racial inferiority and oppression. This is something particular to people of color as the "others" in a society that is racist. It sometimes make us passively perpetuate the racist system by attempting to assimulate into it instead of fighting for ourselves, our culture, our natural selves.

The white counterpart of racism is different because, yes, racism affects white people in profound ways as well. The immediate counterpart is internalized racial superiority. Where white is "normative" which because all things that are white become normative and all things that are said by non-whites suspect or inherently wrong because, well, they are non-whites. When white people are not anti-racist, they are perpetuating racism in many, many ways because, firstly, the culture is set up in such a way as to hide that white is just as much a race as Black -- instead you have the myth of "individuality" to hide that white people act as a group just as other peoples -- they just lie about it.

******

Because I am a person of color and I was raised in a racist, white society, I have the ability or sin of what DuBois calls double-consciousness. This means that I can think in the European/Euro-American mindset -- and do when I am in the process of trying to reach -- there is no need to bring my personal self into this -- only my analytical, somewhat removed self because I refuse to get serious about any of this. Not only that, but this is old hat for me and someone needs to keep calm.

But as long as you refuse to acknowledge and see your whiteness, you will remain single-identity political and unable to see the connections which would be so crucial to the work I would imagine you want to do. EVERYONE is hurting -- you know that. However, it is important to understand the ways and the causes of this hurt. It is important not to assume that everyone hurts the same or that because we all are hurt that we can identify over hurt because that is creating a movement of victims... and none of us are victims.

3

[cuedus.livejournal.com]

Consider those early conversations with me fake --and if you are bothered or sadden by anything, be bothered and saddened that I was allowing my internalized racial inferiority and oppression not to tell you when I felt you were over-simplifying or "universalizing" what I had to say.

The tension will prove to be helpful if we allow ourselves to ride it and know when to take a break and to strive for dialogue instead of debate. I am not going to debate with you. I am going to share and attempt to share in ways I hope you can understand and wait for you, honestly, to let go of some of the stuff you carry. If you feel this is unfair, I am sorry. I cannot become "equal" with you as I have spent my whole life being a cultural other. I cannot erase twenty-six years of my life and I am not asking you do that either -- only to consider it as I had to consider those years when I first started to delve into the issue of race and ethnicity in the country.

What I meant by "Black friends" was that you were attempting to use you relationships with other people of color to cow me. AND that was a poor move. I am not going to submit to you. White culture and people were demystified for me long time ago. With the huge help of a text called _Yurugu_ by Marimba Ani. Not to mention that to bring up your more "pleasant" experiences with people of color is a common weapon in the racist arsenal whose only purpose is to furthe divide people of color so that we can never unite and dismantle European/Euro-American/"white" hegemony and imperalism.

Racism is the glue which holds all the other -isms in place. Racism ensures that there can never be a unified movement because "race" is the visible marker that divides us from each other. Pretending it doens't exist only makes the problem worse as the default (in the language and mindsets of ALL Americans across cultures)is always "white"/European/Euro-American.

And I have to wonder... how honest were any of them with you? Did they tell you when they felt... trampled upon? Did they lose their fight with internalized racial inferiority and oppression just to keep you as a friend?

Did they?

1.

[cuedus.livejournal.com]

*shakes head*

I am not going to substain the energy that was in this post. I know you are sick and aren't feeling very well. I don't want to add to that.

But let me explain some things.

In African culture there is something really real about seeking out teachers -- you don't allow just anyone entrance into your head. You told me information -- you didn't teach me anything which is well because I didn't ask you to. I asked a question, you answered it, but surely you know that this not "teaching". Teaching is not about answering questions, but entering into dialogue and being open to new avenues of thought.

I have to admit that, later, when I really thought about it, I realized that I was really pissed because you said that you can teach me something about sexism and/or feminism. I felt that this was extremely disrespectful and later I realized that this is one of the problems -- you don't know me. You know "things" about me -- woman-identified, Black, trans-mesh/gender outlaw. But you know nothing about the very real experiences behind any of them and seem unwilling to question -- only defend because you don't feel safe and secure.

And, note, I have seen you on, you didn't see me or didn't acknowledge my presence and before I could say anything, anyway, you were gone...

To charge me with ignorance of sexism and womanism is to not know me or my upbringing. I was raised in a very woman-positive household -- but really that doesn't get to it. I was raised in a woman-identified household -- I'm talking matriarchal. I was raised by three very strong Black women who raised me to be aware and wrote their stories into my skin and when not writing, I noticed the differences based on that hated and most sought-after grail: their vaginas. Add to that being sexually abused ages 5-11 for not conforming to masculine gender constructs and you have someone who has always understood sexism, gender, and even womanism/feminism on a visceral level. And, to add, my sexual abuses were by both men and women to show me, using the praxis by Joanna Kadi, what would happen to me if I didn't "become a boy and stop acting like a little girl" -- that I would be treated like one. The only reason why this abuse stopped at the age of 11/12 is because I figured out how to protect myself which mean giving in, saying yes to avoid the beatings. I never "became a little boy", I just hid myself as best I could.

To say that I experience life in my male body does not give credence to the other ways in which I experience life and the added complications of every single one of those levels. Being a Black man does not help, Gayle. And it is really simple of you to attempt to dissect me like that. Go talk to white men -- that is who you mean all of that rhetoric for -- not me.

Also, the social experience of being a woman differs on cultural levels as well. When you picked up some Audre Lorde, did you bother to read it? _Sister Outsider_ itself would start to point out where you are wrong in your strident accusations upon my perceived male-ness without my culture or "race" as a Black(and black) man who is transgendered and a feminist.