Happy New Year to one and all.
I’m reading this great book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. The book explores how and why we know things without knowing why we know them–the premise being that much of our decision-making is subconscious. It’s a fascinating read. At any rate, the author writes about a test called the IAT (Implicit Association Test). The test measures your reaction time while making various word associations in order to reveal your hidden prejudices. There are a number of different tests to reveal your unconscious biases about race, gender, age, skin-tone, weight, religion, etc. Before you start the Race IAT, it asks you about your conscious beliefs about race. Then after your complete the test, the results let you know if you have a slight, moderate or strong preference for whites or blacks. It’s difficult to describe how it works, but basically the test determines how easy or difficult it is for you to associate words like Evil, Nasty, Intelligent, Wonderful, etc. with one race or the other. It’s a scary test to take. We all want to believe we are race neutral, but the reality is that according to the test results, a large majority of whites and more than 50% of blacks more easily link the bad words with black people.
We are all products of our environment and life experiences, and what’s most important is that we don’t lie to ourselves and others about our weaknesses and struggles. My test results revealed that I have a moderate preference for blacks. Anyone who fancies themselves colorblind may be similarly surprised by their results. One of the saddest things I noticed was how closely I associated the word “Hurt” with whites. That’s the source of my prejudice, I think–an accumulation of the hurts over the years–and those wounds have obviously not healed as much as I’d thought. You can try the tests for yourself here. We all know that it’s wrong to make judgments about people based on the color of their skin, but being honest with ourselves and willing to see to what extent we fall short in this area honors God, and gives us an opportunity to decide to change and grow.
