Currently, the University of California appears to be facing several unrelated problems that bring into focus the central issue facing all public universities: how can schools maintain access, affordability, and quality during a time of decreased public support. For many people inside and outside of higher education, the solution to this problem is to push states to increase their funding for higher education; however, this necessary correction is only part of the problem: universities need to not only campaign for more money, but they also have to show that they are using their funds in an effective and efficient manner. Moreover, public universities need to actively fight ethnic and racial conflicts that threaten to arise during times of economic downsizing.
While at first glance the question of racism seems to be unrelated to the issue of funding, it is evident from recent events at the University of California that increased racial tensions often occur during an economic downturn. In fact, one obvious connection between racism and economics concerns enrollment policies and decisions. As many people have reported, less than 2% of the undergraduates at several of the UC campuses are African American, and although this low level of enrollment might not be blamed directly on racism, the effects of this situation is to fan racial tensions. Not only do some African-American students feel that they are not welcomed on their campuses, but studies show that when an ethnic or racial group only represents a small minority, the people from the dominant group revert to unconscious prejudices to categorize and stigmatize the minority group.
Racism in the Hidden Brain
In his book, The Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam reviews the latest studies of how racism works, and he documents some surprising findings. One of the more upsetting discoveries is that children as young as three-years-old will associate positive traits with white people and negative traits with black people regardless of the race of the child or the attitudes of the children's parents and teachers. As Vedantam stresses, these associations are learned through cultural experience and continue to exist in the unconscious of people even if these same individuals espouse tolerant and progressive stances on a conscious level. From this perspective, the only way to fight racism is to openly admit that we all harbor racist associations and that we need to become aware of our unconscious tendencies.
Another interesting finding that Vedantam analyzes is the notion that people equate blackness to crime and welfare on an unconscious level. In reviewing several psychological tests that are based on word and picture associations, we are confronted with the fact that even if politicians do not mention race when discussing crime and welfare, people draw associations between deviance and blackness in their hidden minds, and these associations often determine how people vote.
Racism and Pop Culture
While the election of Barack Obama might make us think that we have moved beyond these race-based prejudices, the recent events at the University of California, San Diego reveal how we cannot simply escape unconscious racism. For example, after a fraternity held a party dubbed the "Compton Cookout," which invited people to come dressed in stereotypical ghetto attire, the students who came up with this idea said that it was only a joke, and they meant no harm. Moreover, they added that they got their ideas from popular culture, and so they were only playing on stereotypes that black actors and rappers portray themselves.
As Vedantam's research shows, the first problem with these students' attempt to deny wrongdoing is that they fail to see how popular culture maintains and circulates racist stereotypes. In other words, from the perspective of the hidden, unconscious mind, there is no such thing as a joke, and, even if people do not consciously intend to offend, they are drawing from an unconscious reservoir of offensive associations. Here, we see how we cannot base personal responsibility solely on what people intend in a conscious way; rather, people must be held accountable for their unconscious associations.
Unconscious Racism
A week after the Compton Cookout created a stir, a noose was found in the main library at UCSD, and several events were held by the administration to address the growing sense of racial conflict. While these interventions were well intended, they failed to get to the root of the problem, which is how do we teach people not to act on their unconscious racist beliefs. This need for education was evident when the student who placed the noose in the library explained that she did not intend to do any harm, and she did not think about the racial significance of the noose.
Whether you accept or do not accept her explanation, it is important to examine how a university student could be unaware of the cultural association tying the noose to racism. On one level, we can blame her education, but on another level, we have to look at the fact that our stereotypes are both unconscious and social; in other words, we share a common language, but we don't even admit that this language exists.
Educating Against Racism
For the past ten years, I have been trying to get university students to explore their own unconscious cultural racism, and this effort is often stalled by the way people resist learning about uncomfortable aspects of themselves and their culture. For example, when I asked my students at UCLA what they thought about the racist events at UCSD, there was an obvious tension in the classroom, and several students sighed and looked away as if to signal to the other students that we should not enter this uncomfortable subject area. I believe that this type of group passive resistance is a method of social control that students use unconsciously.
One of my main strategies to deal with classroom anxiety is to ask students to take out a piece of paper and write down anonymously and quickly what they think the other students are thinking about the current classroom discussion. In making this assignment quick and anonymous, I am trying to get students to not censor themselves, and by having them write about what they think others are thinking, I am able to circumvent some of their defense mechanisms.
After I collect students' comments, I then write down some common themes, and I distribute them to the class for an open discussion. This process usually starts with nervous laughter, but it often quickly moves to a serious conversation on how people do not want to deal with uncomfortable subjects like racism and the unconscious. What many students tell me is that they have never really dealt with any of these issues in their classes, and while they have taken ethnic studies classes and courses on prejudices, they have never been asked to discuss these issues as they relate to themselves and their fellow students. In fact, several of my students have told me that most of their classes are too large to allow for any class discussion, and so these issues are dealt with in an abstract and intellectual manner.
The Problem with Impersonal Instruction
We now see that the problem with teaching about racism is not only that these cultural associations are unconscious, but the university educational structure usually does not allow for personal engagement with the material. Moreover, most instructors do not pay careful attention to how students actually think and process new information; in fact, many professors never study or learn how to teach, and universities assume that professors will just learn how to do this essential task on their own.
What I am suggesting here is that not only do we have to teach about our hidden prejudices, but we have to demand that our teachers know how to teach and that classes are structured so they involve personal involvement in the subject matter. Some may respond that universities cannot afford smaller classes, and while I would dispute this claim, I also would argue that even in large classes, teachers could have students write anonymous comments, and this type of feedback could be discussed directly in class.
Since all of us grow up internalizing racists associations, it is imperative for educators to teach students how to detect and deny their own unconscious social prejudices. It is also important for social institutions, like public universities, to realize that social inequality and the lack of economic opportunity often breeds a return to primitive racist associations. In short, we need to provide access to higher education as we make sure that instruction remains personal and interactive.
It used to say "Colored".
*That's* what racism is, and that's the attitude and practice that was beaten out of the hearts of most people during the Civil Rights Movement. The academic vice of screaming louder and louder over less and less just trivializes the real battles that came before.
"people must be held accountable for their unconscious associations."
And thus, the thought police are born.
Lie One: All Muslims are terrorists.
Lie Two: All whites are racists.
So far left you've hit right.
But I don't agree that this stuff does much good. Its preaching to the choir. The people who are really racists aren't gong to be changed by this. Also, the constant emphasis on things like "unconscious racism" turns off a lot of middle class and lower class white people.
It sickens me when I see posts on this site by blacks who reflexively support some of the most vile behavior because the person doing it was black. For example I had a black guy telling me that even though Farrakhan killed Malcolm X that Farrakhan deserved a pass on that because of all the crimes committed against blacks by whites.
At the same time it sickens me when I see lower class white people being manipulated by Tea Baggers, who are really controlled by big corporations, to vote against their interests primarily due to racial fear.
I think the only way forward is to stop concentrating on race and get white people and black people to recognize their true enemy and that's why I think though his heart is in the right place this kind of stuff does more harm than good,
Now they're telling people that they are racist, whether they want to be or intend to be?! ENOUGH!
Also, read ENOUGH! by Juan Williams. It addresses this craziness.
When I was a grad student in this system I was surprised to find that many of the students I was teaching were in remedial English or Math (or both!). If a student needs remedial basics, they don’t belong in the UC or State system (yet), they belong in a community college. Failure to serve the student body the schools were designed for has a major impact on how “effective and efficient” they can be.
I think this quote says it all.
I'm sorry, but I think this "unconscious racism" is a bunch of BS. Rappers PROMOTE the most negative aspects of urban culture as being authentically black and entertainment, and you call the white kids who emulate the rappers "racist?" That's not right, in my view. Would black kids be "racist" for throwing a rock star party?
Also, didn't it come out that the student who put up the noose was black?
Second, those kids weren't emulating the culture, they were mocking it. Big difference.
And SO WHAT if they were mocking the RAP culture?! I'm black, and I think some of that CRAP is WORTHY of being mocked.
I believe when a person walks into an unkwown situation such as (1st day of summer camp, 1st day college, first day in the army, 1st time in a bar in a new city) a person alone will gravitate to anything he/she believes they have in common with someone else. Someone from their school, cowboys looking for cowboys, southerners looking for other southerners, texans will look for other texans etc. all these would be regardless of race. In other words we look for similarities. I do not believe a black man from Texas would look for another Texan before looking for another black man or woman from New York
What people tend to not understand is that when dealing with other people, reality is more than just how YOU see things, or what YOUR intent was. How other people PERCEIVE what you say/do counts also.
Do you know how I get by in this world? I pay attention to what matters to me and I don't get offended or upset or up in arms about things that people I don't know say that don't affect me. THAT is how adults live. Adults mind their own business. Adults don't press for everyone to behave and think like they do based on some vague unproven (and ultimately unprovable) sense of superiority.
My perceptions are my choices, and whether you agree with them or not, in America, I'm free to think how I want. I mean, I don't know why I have to defend myself to some online comment, since I know I'm not racist, but jeez, the smugness of you. Do your body and fat head actually manage to sleep on one bed? If so, that's a marvel. The ego on this one, sheesh.
That realization goes for both white students and those of color.
Such 'sensitivity training' does not lead to Blacks and Whites easily intermixing, dating and inter-marrying in society. It's just meant to instill a faux sense of 'stability' so University administrators and staff aren't humiliated like they've been over the recent racist fraternity nonsense at UCSD and UCSB.