Americans still linking blacks to apes
Crude historical depictions of African Americans as ape-like may have disappeared from mainstream U.S. culture, but research presented in a new paper by psychologists at Stanford, Pennsylvania State University and the University of California-Berkeley reveals that many Americans subconsciously associate blacks with apes.
In addition, the findings show that society is more likely to condone violence against black criminal suspects as a result of its broader inability to accept African Americans as fully human, according to the researchers.
Co-author Jennifer Eberhardt, a Stanford associate professor of psychology who is black, said she was shocked by the results, particularly since they involved subjects born after Jim Crow and the civil rights movement. "This was actually some of the most depressing work I have done," she said. "This shook me up. You have suspicions when you do the work—intuitions—you have a hunch. But it was hard to prepare for how strong [the black-ape association] was—how we were able to pick it up every time."
The paper, "Not Yet Human: Implicit Knowledge, Historical Dehumanization and Contemporary Consequences," is the result of a series of six previously unpublished studies conducted by Eberhardt, Pennsylvania State University psychologist Phillip Atiba Goff (the lead author and a former student of Eberhardt's) and Matthew C. Jackson and Melissa J. Williams, graduate students at Penn State and Berkeley, respectively. The paper is scheduled to appear Feb. 7 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association.
The research took place over six years at Stanford and Penn State under Eberhardt's supervision. It involved mostly white male undergraduates. In a series of studies that subliminally flashed black or white male faces on a screen for a fraction of a second to "prime" the students, researchers found subjects could identify blurry ape drawings much faster after they were primed with black faces than with white faces. The researchers consistently discovered a black-ape association even if the young adults said they knew nothing about its historical connotations. The connection was made only with African American faces; the paper's third study failed to find an ape association with other non-white groups, such as Asians. Despite such race-specific findings, the researchers stressed that dehumanization and animal imagery have been used for centuries to justify violence against many oppressed groups.
"Despite widespread opposition to racism, bias remains with us," Eberhardt said. "African Americans are still dehumanized; we're still associated with apes in this country. That association can lead people to endorse the beating of black suspects by police officers, and I think it has lots of other consequences that we have yet to uncover."
Scientific racism in the United States was graphically promoted in a mid-19th-century book by Josiah C. Nott and George Robins Gliddon titled Types of Mankind, which used misleading illustrations to suggest that "Negroes" ranked between "Greeks" and chimpanzees. "When we have a history like that in this country, I don't know how much of that goes away completely, especially to the extent that we are still dealing with severe racial inequality, which fuels and maintains those associations in ways that people are unaware," Eberhardt said.
Although such grotesque characterizations of African Americans have largely disappeared from mainstream U.S. society, Eberhardt noted that science education could be partly responsible for reinforcing the view that blacks are less evolved than whites. An iconic 1970 illustration, "March of Progress," published in the Time-Life book Early Man, depicts evolution beginning with a chimpanzee and ending with a white man. "It's a legacy of our past that the endpoint of evolution is a white man," Eberhardt said. "I don't think it's intentional, but when people learn about human evolution, they walk away with a notion that people of African descent are closer to apes than people of European descent. When people think of a civilized person, a white man comes to mind."
Consequences of socially endorsed violence
In the paper's fifth study, the researchers subliminally primed 115 white male undergraduates with words associated with either apes (such as "monkey," "chimp," "gorilla") or big cats (such as "lion," "tiger," "panther"). The latter was used as a control because both images are associated with violence and Africa, Eberhardt said. The subjects then watched a two-minute video clip, similar to the television program COPS, depicting several police officers violently beating a man of undetermined race. A mugshot of either a white or a black man was shown at the beginning of the clip to indicate who was being beaten, with a description conveying that, although described by his family as "a loving husband and father," the suspect had a serious criminal record and may have been high on drugs at the time of his arrest.
The students were then asked to rate how justified the beating was. Participants who believed the suspect was white were no more likely to condone the beating when they were primed with either ape or big cat words, Eberhardt said. But those who thought the suspect was black were more likely to justify the beating if they had been primed with ape words than with big cat words. "Taken together, this suggests that implicit knowledge of a Black-ape association led to marked differences in participants' judgments of Black criminal suspects," the researchers write.
According to the paper's authors, this link has devastating consequences for African Americans because it "alters visual perception and attention, and it increases endorsement of violence against black suspects." For example, the paper's sixth study showed that in hundreds of news stories from 1979 to 1999 in the Philadelphia Inquirer, African Americans convicted of capital crimes were about four times more likely than whites convicted of capital crimes to be described with ape-relevant language, such as "barbaric," "beast," "brute," "savage" and "wild." "Those who are implicitly portrayed as more ape-like in these articles are more likely to be executed by the state than those who are not," the researchers write.
The way forward
Despite the paper's findings, Eberhardt said she is optimistic about the future. "This work isn't arguing that there hasn't been any progress made or that we are living in the same society that existed in the 19th century," she said. "We have made a lot of progress on race issues, but we should recognize that racial bias isn't dead. We still need to be aware of that and aware of all the different ways [racism] can affect us, despite our intentions and motivations to be egalitarian. We still have work to do."
For Eberhardt, two stories of race exist in America. "One is about the disappearance of bias—that it's no longer with us," she said. "But the other is about the transformation of bias. It's not the egregious bias anymore, but it's modern bias, subtle bias." With both of these stories, she said, there is an understanding that society has moved beyond the historic battles centered around race. "We want to argue, with this work, that there is one old race battle that we're still fighting," she said. "That is the battle for blacks to be recognized as fully human."
This research was supported by a Stanford University Dean's Award to Jennifer Eberhardt.
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February 8, 2008
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Comments
You're an awful writer
July 3, 2009 by Anonymous, 1 day 8 hours ago
Comment id: 37690
Dude how the fuck did you end up with a PHD? I can't read your writing for more than a parargraph without throwing up a little bit. Your "writing" is nothing more than "making" "so-called" profound observations "that" I've heard a million times "before" and then putting "quotes" around any noun you "use" in a failed attempt to "come" off as nonchalant and intellectually superior. Seriously, get a real job. Do something good for the world. No one cares about your awful points of view, and you're not changing anyone's mind.
lol
June 28, 2009 by Anonymous, 6 days 4 hours ago
Comment id: 37600
If that is true explain to me why africa is such a crap hole ? why is it that before the white man appeared in Africa blacks had not even invented the wheel and in some places still haven't. there is not one thing blacks have accomplished except being slaves of the white man. oh yeah and you did not build the pyramids Egyptians where not niggers
Obvious reason
June 14, 2009 by Anonymous, 2 weeks 6 days ago
Comment id: 37258
There is an obvious reason for the findings of this study that has nothing to do with "historical dehumanization" - unfortunately it's just not politically correct to say this, but black people literally more closely physically resemble the other ape species than Caucasians.
Just look at photos to prove this- to deny it is like attempting to state the sky isn't blue. It doesn't take a scientific study to see it.
ridiculous
June 13, 2009 by Anonymous, 3 weeks 6 hours ago
Comment id: 37244
I am an eighteen year old female might I not be afraid to add that I am african american also, I dont know how old all of you people are but your responses are quietly childish and ignorant. As a black female I wouldnt care what any " white person" tells me I am capable of doing the same thing they can if anything the real problem with the U.S. is that people try to justify why racism should be when it really shouldn't. If anything white people have taken over lives of many people and ethnicities, for years of history but wether it has happend since the day of earths start it is well within the past of my life and has totally passed the fact that I live now. For any white person who feels that a black person is an ape then apes we will be connected to, but for the most part as apes we will always now how to survive in the world of reality than any 1 white person, the best thing that I kno is that we know what it is like to struggle and suceed. I am not a racist and of course everybody has a right to an opinion but yet an opinion is not so true because it is more of a thought than a true statement. For a white person to make the connection of blacks and apes is rather something you should hear from a 5 year old child but as older people you live a foolish life in believing that you live better than anybody else that is why us black people will always have strength in us. If white people lost their corparate jobs high professions they would be looking up to us to find a way to make a living. If anything if you want to get scientific about it we know how to survive by our means and what is around us.
Please
April 30, 2009 by Anonymous, 9 weeks 1 day ago
Comment id: 36458
First of all white people lived in Caves not us. Second white people are hairy with flat butts and love to eat their meat rare( which is raw).
Now who is the Cave man?
You dont need science to tell us that
April 24, 2009 by Anonymous, 10 weeks 1 day ago
Comment id: 36352
I'm not racist but blacks look exactly like gorrillas.Every race can agree with this,we just dont say anything to their face because we dont want them going ape shit.But these negro's are the same everywhere,even their extremely low IQ 's speak for itself. The only thing they have on their mind is white women and chicken.But I like seing niggers breed with stupid ignorant white women,its actually is upgraiding their species.We should round up these niggers and convert them to half white and then release them back into the wild.
Bush committed hate crimes with the stench of terrorism
March 3, 2009 by Anonymous, 17 weeks 4 days ago
Comment id: 35057
Speaking of George W. Bush:
George W. Bush committed hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism (indicated in my blog).
George W. Bush did in fact commit innumerable hate crimes.
And I do solemnly swear by Almighty God that George W. Bush committed other hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism which I am not at liberty to mention.
Many people know what Bush did.
And many people will know what Bush did—even to the end of the world.
Bush was absolute evil.
Bush is now like a fugitive from justice.
Bush is a psychological prisoner.
Bush has a lot to worry about.
Bush can technically be prosecuted for hate crimes at any time.
In any case, Bush will go down in history in infamy.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
“GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY†BLOG OF ANDREW YU-JEN WANG
______________________
I am not sure where I had read it before, but anyway, it is a linguistically excellent statement, and it goes kind of like this: “If only it were possible to ban invention that bottled up memory so it never got stale and faded.†Oh wait—off the top of my head—I think the quotation came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.
George W. Bush did in fact commit innumerable hate crimes
February 25, 2009 by Anonymous, 18 weeks 3 days ago
Comment id: 34842
Speaking of hate crime(s):
George W. Bush is a hate-crime criminal.
George W. Bush did in fact commit innumerable hate crimes.
Bush will go down in history in infamy.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
“GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY†BLOG OF ANDREW YU-JEN WANG
What's most troubling to me...
February 23, 2009 by Anonymous, 18 weeks 5 days ago
Comment id: 34771
...should duly be most troubling to the black community. There's a line of hip-hop apparel available in stores such as Footlocker, long a hotbed of black youth consumer activity, and others that should dismay black leadership. If memory serves me correctly, it's Fifty Cent's brand of hip-hop/youth oriented apparel and displays large, bold font on tee shirts, jeans and sweaters that reads: "400 lb. ape - official size and weight", as well as "400 lb. gorilla - official size and weight''. It has occurred to me and many people that I know that the worst culprits in perpetuating the black-people-as-simians myth is, well, black people. What with the constant, seeming unconstrained use of pejorative language that draws correlation to between other black individuals and simians used by other blacks, it's no wonder that the public at large are still scratching their heads over all this. Don't just assume that this is a phenomena unique to the white population, either. There're just as many, if not more, south east Asians, south west Asians, middle easterners, hispanics and other ethnic groups that still associate blacks with simians. Case-in-point is the comic book series that WalMart pulled off of the shelves a year or so ago that featured a young monkey widely perceived to be a black child, a favourite among Mexican readers, apparently.
Hate Crimes?
February 20, 2009 by Anonymous, 19 weeks 1 day ago
Comment id: 34706
They should be charged with hate crimes for merely expressing their views, regardless of how racist or small-minded they may be? Either you're from Europe or some other totalitarian part of the world where it's "okay" to silence people for their views, or you're from the United States and have absolutely no regard for the First Amendment. These responders, though stupid, never threatened violence of any kind, and yet you want to see them arrested? Careful, because that kind of thinking leads to just one thing: first we're charging stupid people like these with so-called "hate crimes", and once you give the government that authority, maybe something YOU say someday, however innocuous, might be misinterpreted and you'll find yourself in a cell right next to them.
Please people, stop falling back on "hate speech" as a way to silence opinions you don't like. If you don't like what they say, then humiliate them with the facts --- not ask for them to lose their FREEDOMS!
Bigoted Responses
February 19, 2009 by Anonymous, 19 weeks 2 days ago
Comment id: 34704
No human beings are related more closely to non-human apes than to other humans. Such bigoted responses -- indicating blacks are related more closely to African great apes -- should be disallowed and censored from a site that describes itself by implication as 'scientific'. The people posting such 'opinions' should be charged with hate crimes, and never allowed to post here again.
Wow, this is a difficult and
February 18, 2009 by Anonymous, 19 weeks 3 days ago
Comment id: 34667
Wow, this is a difficult and touchy subject. Biologically, blacks are related closer to apes than non blacks. Studies have confirmed this. Big whoop. The physiological similarities are obvious. Apes cannot swim, blacks have difficulty swimming. This is due to dense muscle mass. African tribes enslaved weaker tribes throughout history and sold them to the white man. Rape is part of their culture, so is violence... a profoundly striking parallel to our ape cousins. There are many violent and criminal non blacks out there too. We must not discount that fact. Africa was a tough continent to live on. Like most weaker species of animal, man had to overcome and adapt to the treacherous animals or become lunch for a tiger or hyena. You can't learn much in this environment so you have to espouse alpha type characteristics displayed by other survivor species. Impulse control is lacking for these people, so is lawlessness. This is passed down from generation to generation until it's embedded in their genes. Bare bones survival tactics with a lack of conscience. They have failed to take responsibiltiy and come together in their OWN land. An astoundingly disgusting number of Africans have reproduced by way of force or animal instincts which inevitably lead to a painful death by way of starvation or disease. Well, I better cut it off short here. On a bright note I have had great black friends who do have the intellect and humility to understand the failed plight of the black man. Anger resides in their hearts because of slavery, People like jesse jackson and al sharpton exist to keep picking at the scab that time tries to heal.But if it weren't forblacks there wouldn't be some of the greatest rock, blues and jazz.
Law of the Jungle
December 13, 2008 by Anonymous, 29 weeks 8 hours ago
Comment id: 33349
I agree with you, it's a shame what has happened to our country. Look how many white children behave now that they have been forced into integration! Obama is NOT my president.
apes
July 16, 2008 by Anonymous, 50 weeks 3 days ago
Comment id: 31127
they are apes and should be confined to africa to rape each other the only way they know to reproduce
apes
May 12, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 7 weeks ago
Comment id: 29773
I think most blacks look like apes too. They honestly do. I'm not saying it to be horrible.
WHITE CIVILIZATION vs THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE
May 11, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 7 weeks ago
Comment id: 29762
The problem is that Blacks are more related to Apes than to Humans.
How do we know that?
We have made tests and experiments in many countries of the world and found this to be true.
But the UN and World Governments have hidden these facts to favor Blacks.
Blacks lack the power to create, organize and develope ideas and projects.
Blacks have the urge to kill and rape other races. Murder dominates the brain of the Ape.90% of murders are commited by Blacks, our jails are full of these Apes.
Their mind is more geared toward brute force, lifting, running, jumping,killing and brute animal sex.
Whites and Jews, the creators of White Civilization, have the power to create, organize and develope the World.
All African nations are failed poor nations.
America is already bankrupt because Apes are moving up and being promoted by White traitors.
Just wait until Black Supremacist Obama gets in, gas will be $12 per gallon and food will be rationed, only Blacks will eat and the rest will starve.
I urge all Whites, Latins and Asians to boycott black events, persons, TV, Music etc effectively immediately. Support only White related events.
Blacks want to exterminate the White race and impose the Law of the Jungle on the civilized world.
A superior White man can not accept a leader who is Black. A Black can not and should not teach a White man or white children. If we accept this condition then we deserve to be below black apes.
It's up to Us to decide if we want to be exterminated or fight back the forces of evil and put them in their place according to the Bible.
Arabs usually kill any daughter that falls for black men. Arabs know Blacks are African Apes
The Constitution was drafted by White men for White men. Not for Black Apes.
The inevitability of a race war looks omminously possible. So.....prepare. Freedom is not free and we must fight to Free Ourselves from Ape rule
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTFLBNb6lQk&feature=email
Sus generic "ape" as subliminal "death's-head" icon.
February 16, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 19 weeks ago
Comment id: 27562
I coined the term "subliminal racism." My 1980 UCSD dissertation, "The Manichean Leitmotif," deals with the "progression" of scientific racism from religion to poetry (letters), politics, science of the mind, and economic dominance--in short, I crack the racist code in the hidden language comprising the controlling "mythology" of White supremacy.
I pointed to the sus generic "ape" ("Mr. Gorilla!" -- see Victorian cartoon) as a "Death's-Head" icon that is deliberately embedded in the mindset of subliminal racists. Click the licks offered here and see for self.
But come with thinking caps on; no dunces allowed; and whatever you do, "read and run" (Habakkuk 2:2) but forget me not---I hate plagiarizers, too.
In two recent books, "Subliminal Racism Essays" and "Discrete Silence Essays" I presented explications of the "black monkey/ape" imagery that is still with us through articles by contemporary "scienceblog" mindsets that harbor "subliminal racism."
Please visit my website for "one monkey don't stop no show" JIVE TURKEY at "Shop Talk" and cry and laugh your azzes off at the same time.
http://www.subliminalracism.com/G5SubscribersClub-JiveTurkey.html
You all come back for more!
Arthur J. Graham, Ph.D.
http://www.azauthors.com/2005.html
http://www.subliminalracism.com/Archives.html
lets find another reason to fight
February 12, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 20 weeks ago
Comment id: 27476
This prove nothing. This states that people match the colors much faster then shapes.
You you have 2 shapes (cube and prism); one cube will be yellow and another red, and the prism will be red. Then do the several pages of the such a test with different colors, and you have 2 seconds for each page... I bet by the end you will be matching the colors. What will happen if we make the shapes more complex, like faces?
There are two errors:
1. why they did not find the monkeys with white fur?
2. who was preparing the test? and was doing the research?
This is not adequate test.
And?
February 9, 2008 by belg4mit, 1 year 20 weeks ago
Comment id: 27419
They are apes. So is every other H. sapiens on the bloody planet. Perhaps instead the research ought to focus on why so many Americans refuse to recognize such a simple fact of taxonomy? Besides that, what of the many other interpretations of faces one can make e.g; horse-faced? I often encounter visages that remind me of frogs, pigs, bears, etc. Yet I have no desire to harvbest gall bladders or make bacon of them.
I agree
February 9, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 20 weeks ago
Comment id: 27417
Not only is there a bias in that either no or few AA subjects were tested, there's also a bias in that no foreign students, and importantly no African students were involved either. Finally, their commentary is a non-scientific stretch. The source of this bias as coming from early texts and cultural identifications is just speculation and could be tested by including foreign students (Africans) who have likely not been so exposed. Also the stuff about crimes and their descriptions is gratuitous.
@Renaisauce
February 8, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 21 weeks ago
Comment id: 27392
I completely agree. there are few other glaringly obvious omissions to the study. For example, were there any African Americans in the study? Why was the sample set limited to "mostly white males?" Did the data from tests of non-whites and/or non-males show any discrepancy?
Renaisauce
February 8, 2008 by Renaisauce, 1 year 21 weeks ago
Comment id: 27389
While I fully agree that racial biases are a bad thing, I'm looking through these results and seeing plenty of their own biases. I'm especially concerned about the negative portrayals of apes in this paper. Aren't gorillas and chimpanzees supposed to be peaceful animals? Didn't anyone see Gorillas in the Mist? Second, I'm concerned that their visual cue test had a flaw. Gorillas happen to have physically darker faces. Did they try the white people with albino monkeys? That might help. Lastly, executions are more likely given in "brutal" crimes because that's what it takes to get an execution. I don't think apes have anything to do with that. Of the crimes, was there a connection between all the executions? In summary, they may have jumped the gun a little.
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