When filling out the questionnaire there was one answer I gave that I thought was worth exploring. The question asked something along the lines of, “who do you consider to be more ‘American,’ Native Americans or European Americans? ” Clearly in the very labeling of these two groups, Native Americans should epitomize what it means to be “American,” given they are native to the land. But what has become of America, the culture and landscape as a whole, has a very different face than that of the country’s indigenous people.I don’t think I'm alone when I say that “whites” or Americans of European descent are the more representative race in this country, by far.
And while, America truly is a melting pot, and home to African American, Latino and Asian American populations in particular, this country is overwhelmingly white. In fact according to the CIA’s World Factbook by July of 2011 the statistics read that whites hold 79. 96% of the population and Amerindians are at . 97%. Given this data, its not surprising that my image of an “American” leans towards that of European descent.
Although my results “suggest little or no association between White Americans and Native Americans with foreign and American,” it did require a bit of concentration on my part. Not because I feel like Amerindians are more foreign, in fact when I had to visualize America to match it to its cities, it was almost easier for me to associate Native American’s photos as being American. To be honest, I think that’s because I visualized “Americana” as opposed to sleek, fast, messy, modern America. I visualized “amber waves of grain,” stagecoaches, bison, and Cowboys and Indians and it came easily to me.
I do believe my results were accurate, and therefore where not surprised. Clearly there is quite a bit of irony in this test, considering these people called this land home for hundreds of years before Europeans took it captive. And yet, Amerindians don’t even claim 1% of the population, and I even reduced them to a bit of a stereotype in order to associate them with America. The triggers that were given for America were U. S.
city and state names, all of which are derived from the Amerindians. However, I did not find any of them particularly “American” at least in contrast to the “foreign” destinations.If instead of France, Italy and Oslo they had picked Phenom Penh, Abu Dhabi and Zimbabwe, the instinct to select “foreign” would have been stronger. And as far the images that were selected to represent “European” versus “Native American” they were virtually identical. Both were black and white portraits and photographs that bore no glaring, obvious distinction between the two groups.
But I suppose the fact that both the words and images were subtle was intentional on the part of the experimenters so that a more accurate measurement of implicit attitudes could be read.My second test measured my reactions to Barack Obama versus Ronald Reagan. Again, my results measured little to no automatic preference between the two. I found the results of past test takers to be worth noting, because Obama surpassed Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Lincoln, Jefferson and Presidents in general.
He tied with Roosevelt and lost to Clinton and Kennedy, which I think has many implications. First the data could be illustrating that most people are not racist considering he beat out the majority of the other options, including Jefferson and Lincoln who are particularly celebrated in American History.Second, this test begs the question, are they looking to see if people are racist (since he is the only African American option) or is this measuring job performance? The triggers they used were photographs and adjectives. Both Obama and Reagan’s photos were professional headshots with equal number of happy and serious expressions. The words consisted of wonderful, glorious, awful, horrible etc. Neither trigger related to racial stereotypes, and could easily be used to assess performance.
Perhaps if they used triggers associated with racial stereotypes that would then yield results that measure racism more accurately.Lastly, whether someone is a Democrat or Republican will also have an effect on this test. Obama beat all the Republican presidents and fell short when compared to JFK and Clinton (two revered Democrats. ) It can also be assumed that most people taking this test are somehow related to world of Academia, and many academics, scholars etc. are known for their liberal and progressive viewpoints.
Therefore the results of this test may not be entirely accurate since many of the test-takers may share the same political stance. Although I consider myself a Democrat, I can appreciate some of the contributions that Reagan made as president.But I went into this test thinking they were measuring for racial preference and therefore reacted off of that. Despite the fact that my results indicated little to no observable preference for any group or person over another, I found this to be an illuminating and revealing examination.
I think it could be useful in a variety of situations, perhaps when screening job applicants, appointed officials, jurors etc. But at the very least it can help the average person unearth prejudices that have been lying dormant and unnoticed within them.
