The IAT

After taking a few of these Implicit Association Tests I am left thinking about some of my subconcious beliefs. I am not very surprised by the test results- although they may seem kind of jarring. These were the results that I had:

• Race: Moderate preference to European Americans over African Americans
• Sexuality: Slight preference to Gay People
• Gender and Science: Moderate association with Male=Science and Female=Liberal Arts
• Religious Preferences: Hinduism high, Islam slightly above the middle, Judaism in the middle, Christianity almost at the very bottom
• Native v. Foreign: Little or no preference between white people and Native Americans

I was mostly surprised by my Race and Religious preference results. Now, having a moderate preference towards European Americans does not make you a racist but it is a sign of an implicit bias. When I first took this test in the 8th grade I had a strong favoritism of African Americans over European Americans. But now I seem to be leaning more toward the other side. Why has this change occured? In the IAT surveys for this particular test, they asked many questions about how often you watch the news. Obviouisly, the media plays a huge role in our baises. I definitely believe that one of the reasons I got this result has been becasue of my hyperawareness around Chicago youth violence as the issue has become a major point of fascination for me. A lot of the media exploits race when it comes to covering a story about gangs in Chicago or any type of crime. I am much more aware of these things now than I was in 8th grade. In fact, I barely ever paid attention to those kinds of things then. I also feel that my bias may be coming from watching in the news how different demographic groups have been responding to the Supreme Court case reguarding same sex marraige. There was a long segment on Chris Matthews the other day discussing why African American's as a whole are less likely to be in favor of civil equality for homosexuals than caucasions. One pundant said that she believes the reason for this is because of the strong, conservative-Evangelical backgrounds that many people in the African American community have. I believe that through the media I have begun to associate African Americans with Christianity which I have a strong bias against as shown in the religious preference test.

This was the most shocking test to me, however I understand where these biases would be coming from. It is extremely unfortunate to me that the faces of the anti-LGBT movement tend to be Christian. I do not associate Christianity itself with discrimination and hatred however it is hard to be me and not feel the least bit ticked off at the people holding the "God hates F-gs" signs calling themselves Christians. I come from a Christian family, my great grandparents were missionaries. I have very fond memories of going to the church that they co-founded on those hot summer Sundays and listening to sermons about forgiveness and understanding... But these memories are over shadowed by the messages of hate and merciless intolerance that I see coming from members of the religious community. Obviously I do not hate Christians but I think that I may feel a level of discomfort regarding the topic of Christianity because of how they are portrayed in the media and from my own personal experiences.