Thursday, March 6, 2014

#7 Article: Study Reveals The Unconscious Bias Towards Dark Skin People We Already Knew Existed

This Huffington Post article discusses how studies show that people subconsciously remember educated black men as having lighter skin. This implies that black people are most intelligent and successful when they have light skin as opposed to darker skin. This study consisted of 125 university students who were shown either of the words, "ignorant" or "educated" followed by a picture of a black man. Next, they were shown seven more of these pictures with the same face but with differing skin tones. The results showed that the students who saw the word "educated" connected it with the lighter skin-toned man. This just goes to show that many people are prejudice against people with darker skin and do not even realize it most of the time.

I believe that many people have these stereotypes ingrained into their minds because of the "bubble" and society that they live in. As the article stated, we subconsciously make these assumptions and stereotypes in our minds before even thinking about what we concluded or getting to know someone. I really think that these assumptions lead to our downfall as a society and that we need to grow and evolve to rebuild it. Not only is it wrong to make these assumptions but it is pure ignorance. I do believe that we can learn to correct these faults we have.





Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/skin-tone-bias_n_4597924.html
Picture: http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1562583/thumbs/o-SKIN-TONE-BIAS-570.jpg

1 comment:

  1. Comment #4: This was a great article. I thought it was an excellent representation of the ingrained bias towards dark skinned individuals. This is a serious problem. These stereotypes must be rooted out of people's minds because it is unfair and unjust to assume that because of somebody's pigmentation of skin he or she is more intelligent and better educated. You are right to say that it is pure ignorance that leads these people to automatically answer that the light skinned people are more intelligent. Our society must learn to look past external appearances and focus on the internal personalities and capabilities of all people. I believe that this is a serious fault in our society and it is crucial for us to move past these base assumptions.Once we know the truth and the facts rather than relying on the prejudices in our society, then we will be truly better people for it and hopefully we will stop judging people by putting them in categories of skin color, or any other external factor for that matter.

    ReplyDelete