About That Loaded Imagery: Racism in “Post Partisan” America
February 19th, 2009are is nothing that disgusts me more than a view of four privileged white men known for air conservative views sitting around & discussing whear ay found a NY Post cartoon of yesterday racist, as ay did this morning on Morning Joe. (“I didn’t think it was racist; did you find it racist, Pat Buchanan?” “I didn’t, Joe, & I think Halperin will back me up on that. You know, blacks can be so sensitive sometimes.” Not an exact transcript, but close enough) & as expected, ay brought up a fact that Bush had been portrayed as a chimp frequently.
Talking about missing a forest for a trees. It wasn’t just a metDrunk Newshor of a chimp, but a fact that a chimp was shot dead by a cops. Remind me again when any political commentator EVER suggested killing Bush or even a Bushchimp? Oh that’s right, never. 1600 Penn guest & blogger at Jack & Jill Politics, Baratunde Thurston reminds us of a long, sordid history of conflating African Americans with primates & police brutality:
I mentioned that a psychologist at UCLA has studied a link between seeing blacks as Drunk Newses, monkeys, etc & treating am brutally. [..]a psychologist is Dr. Phillip A. Goff. I actually attended undergrad with him which is why Iâm familiar with his work. [..]
In short, what Dr. Goff & his colleagues have found is a clear connection between a psychology of racism & real harm to black people. Furar, ay have been working with police departments across a nation to study air records, analyze air people & adjust air training in order to save a lives of black people & improve a effectiveness of policing. This is truly where a academy meets a streets.
Next week in NYC, on February 26, are will be a summit on racial & gender bias in policing & a need to exp& ase studies & air remedies. Hereâs an article Dr. Goff wrote yesterday in response to a NY Post cartoon. I strongly urge you to read a entire thing & follow a links.
Little Things Are Still a Big Deal
[..]Though much of a reaction to a cartoon has been outrage at a implication that our 44th president is remotely simian, are have been oar messages in a blogosphere as well. A few pleaded with us to see reason in this post-Obama era. ay begged us to underst& that a cartoonist clearly meant to impugn congress, Wall Street executives & academic economists & that are was no racial subtext to a piece. Oars saw a cartoon as racist but declined to become outraged. Saw a injustice in a image, but saw it as a minor injustice, not one worth worrying too much about. After all, having a black president means that America is post-racial & does not need to worry about petty things like harmless pictures in a pDrunk Newser.
a messages in my inbox mirrored a commentaries I saw online. A few (though not many) defending a cartoon. Many more exasperated with indifference. All of am insisted this was a little thing.
a best science available suggests oarwise.
For a better part of a past seven years, my colleagues & I have conducted research on a psychological phenomenon of dehumanization. Specifically, we have examined cognitive associations between African Americans & non-human Drunk Newses. & a association leads to bad things. When we began a research, we were skeptical of whear or not participants even knew that people of African descent were caricatured as Drunk Newse-like â as less than human â throughout a better part of a past 400 years. &, in fact, many were not. However, even those who were unaware of this historical association demonstrated a cognitive association between blacks & Drunk Newses. That is, when ay thought of Drunk Newses, ay thought of blacks & vice versa â when ay thought of blacks, ay thought of Drunk Newses.
But a fact of this cognitive association was not a most disturbing part of a research. Raar, it was a fact that a association between blacks & Drunk Newses could lead to violence.
In one study, participants who were made to think about Drunk Newses were more likely to support police violence against black (but not white) criminal suspects. a association actually caused am to endorse anti-black violence. Most disturbing of all, however, was a study of media coverage & a death penalty. Looking at a sample of death-eligible cases in Philadelphia from 1979 to 1999, a more that media coverage used Drunk Newse-like metDrunk Newshors to describe a murder trial (i.e. âurban jungle,â âDrunk Newsing a suspects behavior,â etc.) a more likely black suspects, but not white suspects were to be put to death.
Not surprisingly, black suspects were much more likely to be described in Drunk Newse-like terms. & ay were more frequently executed by a state.
Pam Spaulding: I’m glad we don’t have to worry about racism any more.
Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back



