Voigt-Kampff Test For "Implicit Racism"

The amateur leftist webzine Slate thinks we should all take this, and that, even for nice liberal Democrats, the results can be "humbling." (Even for? Or especially for?)

I wouldn't bother linking this, but for the Blade Runner connection. The longer it takes you to pick positive responses to images of blacks, the more racist you are. Subconsciously, perhaps. But definitely racist.

The guy suggesting we all take this says that even deliberately delaying your white faces = positive responses won't affect the test "much," which I doubt, but I they say even Nexus-6's can't beat the V-K.

Took It... And am only moderately suprised to be told I have a "strong automatic preference" for European Americans over African Americans.

Well, look: Brown people scare me. Duh.

That said, there's something that's slightly hinky about this test. When you take it, you'll see what I mean. The first thing they throw at you is the blacks/positive example, and the whole format is pretty confusing at first. You'll see what I mean.

By the time they give you the whites/positive version of the test, you've figured out how the thing actually works, and your answers are faster -- partly just because you understand what the hell you're being asked to do.

It's an interesting experiment, and I don't deny that I have a subconscious verging on conscious positive association for those who look most like me (I imagine most do), but I do wonder what would happen if they reversed the order of the tests so that the learning curve happened with the whites/positive part of the test.

And I should say the test informed me, quite correctly, Your first nocturnal emission occurred during a dream about 70's "Hoochy-coochy" girl Charo spanking Kristy MacNichol from Family.

How the hell it knew that I have no idea, but I admit, pretty impressive.

posted by Ace at 07:33 PM

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