IAT Blog Post

I took the IAT test regarding race, and it came out that I have a moderate automatic preference for European americans over African Americans. This test result does not shock me. I grew up in a town that was 94% white in a county that was 94% white. I hardly knew any African American people during my 18 years of living there all the time, I can recall only a few people. Because of this, it happened that my social circle didn’t include any people of African American descent; it didn’t until I came to college. I have a strong memory of stopping in a rest stop in New Jersey when I was about 14 and being shocked by how many people had different color skin than me; I would soon arrive in Washington DC and be shocked that there were more black people there than I was. Does this make me racist? Absolutely not, at least I think. I was raised to respect everyone regardless of skin color, and live by that. But I think my reaction in this circumstance, and the results of my test, are indicative of me not being raised in a diverse community. Everyone looked like me, and I never had to encounter or witness racism against people of color first hand. My test results prove that I am still getting over living in a very one-dimensional, homogenous community. It shows that I have stuff I need to work on as a result of being a white guy growing up in a nearly all white community.

One thought on “IAT Blog Post

  1. Sophia Picozzi

    I really appreciate and respect your honesty here!!! It is really cool and refreshing to read and I am happy I read your post! I am actually from New Jersey so it is interesting that you mention it as one of your exposures to diversity. New Jersey also has a pretty scattered demographic in the sense that there are communities where it is majority white.

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