Patel

Priya Patel

Adam Padgett

ENGL 102

02/28/2017

Are You Secretly a Racist?

Inquiry: Is the definition of a racist we perceive to be today, just a way of covering up the racism

that is actually going on in present day?

Proposed Thesis: I argue that racism is not as prevalent in todays society as it used to be in the

pre 1960s, yet we dont realize that there are subtle racial biases, in the 21st century, that are held

in all minds subconsciously without realizing.

Fieseler, Robert. "Exposing Bias: Race and Racism in America." Harvard Extension School.

Harvard University, 13 Feb. 2017. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.

This Harvard article is an interview between two professors who teach race in American at the

University. They are talking about how there is a bias towards certain races that everyone holds

in our society and that is what is causing oppression of races. . The article states, In Brazil,

knowing someones color is a clue about his or her social status, but its not the only piece of

information that you need to know. Are they wealthy? Are they educated? (Fieseler). It also

talks about how in the past, in America, your social status was based on your race. This idea

could potentially affect the future generations and cause others to believe so without have a valid

reason of why? Often biased actions are individualistic. We all have different opinions and we

choose to allow certain biased views to enter our minds. This can relate to the main inquiry in

which it is trying to explain that racism today is seen by color but not just that also their social
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standing, so it is not complete racism. This article is credible because it is from Harvard

University and the questions are answered form well accredited professors who are professors at

the university. This source is suitable for my paper. It helps show how racism and race is viewed

in todays society and that bias is what leads to it.

Blake, John. "The new threat: 'Racism without racists'" CNN. Cable News Network, 27 Nov.

2014. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.

Blake talks about how there is racial bias happening in America currently. This was explained

through the psychological experiment of two pictures. One picture of a white man with a knife

attacking an unarmed white man and the second being the white man with a knife attacking an

unarmed black man. In the first picture, when asked, many people got the answer correct when

asked who was holding the knife. In the second picture however, both black and white who

answered, said that the black man was holding the knife. This is showing how a certain racism

cannot be grouped by race and that we are we have bias within and out of our race. This

experiment, conducted by CNN, shows that there is racial bias and that humans are always

biased and put certain people in groups based on race. Ross says. "This is one of the most

insidious things about bias. People may absorb these things without knowing them." (Blake).

They however do not consider it racism until something great or profound is done to a certain

race. This source is credible even though it is news because the article was found from a google

scholars search. The article is from 2014 and is relatively new. The article could be biased in

experiment, again we dont know if those people didnt identify with being racist in the

beginning of the experiment. This source would defiantly be suitable for my topic because it is

talking about how racism is subtler now and isnt really seen as racism.
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Brown, Geraldine. "The Millennials (Generation Y): Segregation, Integration and Racism."

ABNF Journal, vol. 28, no. 1, Winter2017, pp. 5-8.

The central claim of this source is that racism has changed as the generations have. In generation

Y, also known as the millennials, racism has become more varied among many racial groups

rather than a few main groups we were used to in the past (Brown 7). Brown explains how when

asked about racism, the first thing to pop up in our minds is the history of learning about one race

dominating another minor race (Brown 7). However, the case with racism has become vaster in

this generation. He states that even if one is not racist towards another race, they are also racist

within their own. Certain cultures very importance based on the shade of their skin within their

race (Brown 7). The source itself seems credible due to it being a peer reviewed source. She is

the current editor of the ABNF journal, a RN, and has a PhD in Nursing. This article is biased in

the sense that it is targeting the millennials yet that varies from 1980s to the early 2000s, so it

kind of implies that there was no racism that was acknowledged greatly within a race before

then. This source is suitable for my project because it goes over a key topic, which is what is

racism and that has changed over the generations.

Kristof, Nicholas. "Is Everyone a Little Bit Racist?" The New York Times. The New York

Times, 27 Aug. 2014. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.

In this article Nicholas Kristof is talking about how there is stereotyping within each race. For

African Americans you think that young males are related to criminal activity. However, there is

also those who think that Americans are white. Not all Americans are white. The main point in

this article is that they are people who believe in equality yet they have a biased view on the
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world, and that is the supposed cause of racism to happen. An interesting experiment was

described in this article as well and it showed how we can be racist subconsciously through video

games. A student from the University of Colorado used an online shooter game to test if there

was bias between white and black. The students were the police officers who were shown a

series of black and white males with some holding guns and some holding innocent objects. In

the result more blacks were shot in the video game, especially with undergraduate students

playing. The first time I took the test, years ago, I shot armed blacks in an average of 0.679

seconds while waiting slightly longer 0.694 seconds to shoot armed whites (Kristof).

Relating this back to the inquiry question, this article is showing how we associated guns with

the blacks more so than whites. It shows that we rely on more associations with racism than skin

colors. This source is somewhat credible, it is a popular article rather than peer reviewed, and

was written in 2014 so relatively new. The author is a human rights & women rights activist, as

well as interested in health and global affairs. The article could be biased in that we dont know

everyone who was used in the experiment. That information might vary the results. Was it

student who believed they werent racist going in? This source is suitable because it shows how

we subconsciously stereotype certain races. When doing so you may not realize why but your

mind automatically puts certain groups of people in certain categories leading to racism.

Northup, Temple. "Is Everyone a Little Bit Racist? Exploring Cultivation Using Implicit and

Explicit Measures." Southwestern Mass Communication Journal, vol. 26, no. 1, Sept.

2010, pp. 29-41.

This source is more focused on the journalism side of the racism. The article talks about how

there is a unbalanced view of each race in media in todays news. One example is of how
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African Americans are seen more as criminals than other races due to racial stereotyping.

Especially in the eye of the media (Northup 38). Due to this being the media it easily allows

others to be influenced causing the general population to associated criminals with a certain race

over others. This article is credible since it is a peer reviewed source and the author, Temple

Northup, has good knowledge of mass communications. The article relates to the inquiry in

which racism isnt so much that blacks are beneath us but that we associated certain negative

activities with a race, whereas before in the pre 1960s it was just solely based on color of the

skin. This article could be somewhat biased because the article only talks about media being

racist when the title is Is Everyone A Little Bit Racist. The title can be misleading in the way that

others think its generalized but instead there is just one topic. This source is somewhat suitable

for my topic; I use the example to stress that we automatically correlated a race to an activity

without realizing it.

Mullainathan, Sendhil. "Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions." The New York

Times. The New York Times, 03 Jan. 2015. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.

The author in this article is writing about how there is subtle discrimination that is happening

more currently but we dont realize it. The key to fast thinking discrimination is that we all

share it. Good intentions do not guarantee immunity. (Mullaninathan). This doesnt mean you

are consciously being racist but rather subconsciously. We have snap judgements that come from

associating certain races to a category. Relating back to the inquiry question, this article shows

that racism has become more of a snap judgement rather than disgust by physical appearances. In

the past it was based on color only but now an days its about the race and what they do

commonly. Those acts are used to discriminate the groups of races, and that shows superiority.
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This article is somewhat credible even though the article is from New York Times, because the

author is a Harvard professor. The bias in this article could be when the article says that Many

studies show yet there is no detail of the studies in which they show more prejudice shoves

toward a race. We dont know who was involved in these studies. This article would be

somewhat suitable for my topic that it explains how more racism occurs subconsciously for those

who are have nothing but well intentions.