I generally agree with and commend Nicholas Kristof’s very humanitarian and compassionate efforts, viewpoints and articles. But, this morning, with his New York Times column, “Racism Without Racists,” he has really confused me.
Kristof’s column starts as follows:
One of the fallacies this election season is that if Barack Obama is paying an electoral price for his skin tone, it must be because of racists.
On the contrary, the evidence is that Senator Obama is facing what scholars have dubbed “racism without racists.”
Kristof then presents statistical, scientific, and anecdotal data and “evidence” to prove such an oxymoron.
For example,
Most of the lost votes [by Obama] aren’t those of dyed-in-the-wool racists. Such racists account for perhaps 10 percent of the electorate and, polling suggests, are mostly conservatives who would not vote for any Democratic presidential candidate.
Rather, most of the votes that Mr. Obama actually loses belong to well-meaning whites who believe in racial equality and have no objection to electing a black person as president — yet who discriminate unconsciously.
And,
Research suggests that whites are particularly likely to discriminate against blacks when choices are not clear-cut and competing arguments are flying about — in other words, in ambiguous circumstances rather like an electoral campaign.
For example, when the black job candidate is highly qualified, there is no discrimination. Yet in a more muddled gray area where reasonable people could disagree, unconscious discrimination plays a major role.
White participants recommend hiring a white applicant with borderline qualifications 76 percent of the time, while recommending an identically qualified black applicant only 45 percent of the time.
And back to our presidential elections:
“In the U.S., there’s a small percentage of people who in nationwide surveys say they won’t vote for a qualified black presidential candidate,” Professor Dovidio said. “But a bigger factor is the aversive racists, those who don’t think that they’re racist.”
Faced with a complex decision, he said, aversive racists feel doubts about a black person that they don’t feel about an identical white. “These doubts tend to be attributed not to the person’s race — because that would be racism — but deflected to other areas that can be talked about, such as lack of experience,” he added.
Finally,
Still, a huge array of research suggests that 50 percent or more of whites have unconscious biases that sometimes lead to racial discrimination. (Blacks have their own unconscious biases, surprisingly often against blacks as well.)
I am no social psychologist, but when Nicholas Kristof claims that there can be “racism without racists,” that there are “well meaning” white people who “discriminate unconsciously,” who have “unconscious biases” against blacks, who are “particularly likely to discriminate against blacks…in ambiguous circumstances,” and that there are “aversive racists, those who don’t think that they’re racist,” I am truly confused. Perhaps I need to take some of Professor Dovidio’s courses.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.