than the general public. That’s not to say that cops aren’t prejudiced or seemingly trigger happy against Black people. They are merely somewhat less so due to their training and possibly by serving on integrated police forces.
The Science of Why Cops Shoot Young Black Men by Chris Mooney in Mother Jones supplies more information and food for thought than few people, regardless of political affiliation, are willing to comprehend.
As these experiments suggest, it is not that we are either prejudiced or unprejudiced, period. Rather, we are more and less prejudiced, based on our upbringings and experiences but also on a variety of temporary or situational prompts …
Mooney, includes methods and implications for how implicit negative associations with regard to race, class, and gender can be reduced. And not just because that’s the right thing to do, but also because:
Prejudice and essentialism are bad for your brain–if you value creative thinking, anyway. But they can also be downright dangerous.
IOW – prejudices create stupid and uncreative people and not the other way round. There’s a bestseller in this: “The Simple Secret To Raising Smarter Kids – and increase your IQ at the same time”
Anyone counting on young people (ages 18-24) to lead this country away from racism, needs to think again. Other than those over age 65, that age demographic is the most biased. The least biased group are those that self-identify as “strongly liberal.” Slightly-moderately-strongly conservatives are the most biased and are like white people in general.
Do go and read Mooney’s article. There’s much in it to discuss. Far more than the title suggests. I could go off in several directions from it, but discussions interest me more than writing an unread monologue.
