Pride or prejudice

I often refer to the Harvard Implicit Project online test to detect unconscious preferences/isms/prejudice in these pages. Clearly, I am impressed by it. (Also see Not a racist? You are a fool or a liar.

Pete Jones, however, has recently sent comments that I thought I should post on the front page here, since I doubt if many of you go through the archives much!

Here is the conversation so far:

Pete Jones
Harvard should be more careful in pointing out that their ‘scores’ mean absolutely nothing the in the real world ( See Blanton and Jaccard 2005, 2006). A ‘strong’ or ‘moderate’ preference is just that, a preference, and there is no evidence that even strong scores make you ‘racist’;. People make this assumption despite the warnings on the site.

Nayano
Thanks for your comment, Pete – and it’s a good point.
I am about to have a look at Blanton and Jaccard 2005, 2006!
I still think the test is worthwhile as a wakeup call’.

Pete Jones
Hart Blanton has the papers on his web site; http://blanton.socialpsychology.org/

I think that in the desire/rush to get data for their test Harvard have allowed it to become a ‘fairground attraction’. If you look at an article in the European Review of Social Psychology (2008, 19, 285-338) you will see that there are over 20 potential contaminants just in the way different people approach the test which this large scale testing cannot control for. So, when you get a result it should be taken with a large pinch of salt and remember that they are not saying you are racist. In fact research suggests that only a few % of people are strongly racist and about 20% have a more controlled racism which generally they manage and don’t consciously let impinge on others. And that is the rub (as Shakespeare said?), as almost half of people leave the Harvard site believing they are ‘racist’ when in fact that is a gross over estimation IMHO.

Nayano
Thanks for all the information, Pete.
I haven’t had time to read it all yet – is that true that almost half the users leave the site ‘believing they are racist’?
People I have spoken to who have done the test are often shocked by their results, but don’t say that therefore they are racist. Instead they have something profound to think about. But of course all that is just anecdotal.
As I think that I have already said, (sorry if I am repeating myself): I think that all sorts of ‘ism’s are endemic, and most happen ‘under the radar’, and so I welcomed a means to at least become more self-aware.

Pete Jones
That is exactly right Nayano, but I monitor the web chat on the test and most people start the post with some expression that they have discovered they are racist.

The bottom line is the test raises awareness and then people can think about what they might want to do about it? My concern is that the measurement isn’t probably isn’t suitable to be used with 14 million people (as it has been since 1998) if numbers are leaving thinking it says they are racists/sexist etc.

PLEASE – leave your comments on the test

Can ‘anti-immigrants’ read?

A report just released, the Economic Impacts of Migration on the UK, has found that there is simply no evidence to suggest that migration has any substantial negative impact on either wages or employment, and that it is entirely possible that there is a small positive impact. The authors also point out that there may be more significant effects in some local areas.

This is a timely report in light of the unrest about migrant labour that is growing and becoming more strident in the UK.

But will the ‘stridents’ read it?

Employers of temporary workers see a soft touch

Andrew at the Bewildered Herd has posted a carefully researched article that concludes that, despite claims of the Immigration Department to the contrary, the number of 457 visa holders in Australia is not falling as the labour market deteriorates, but their pay is. (See the monthly summary of the 457 visa program and data released by the ABS, both released on 25 February.)  They are not receiving pay increases in line with other workers.

Andrew says

“Migrant workers should not be targeted for retrenchment in front of Australian workers (although this is what the Government has suggested should happen), they should be treated as equals. In contrast to this, it appears that employers are keeping those workers on 457 visas while sacking other workers. The reason for this is not that employers have a soft spot for 457 visa holders, but rather they recognise the power that they have over 457 visa holders, predominantly because these workers rely on their employers not only for a wage, but their presence in Australia”.

Migrants and refugees, or is it a bear?

Minister for Immigration, Senator Chris Evans, has announced a $4.4 million increase in funding to the UNHCR, and a small increase of 250 people to 13,750 in 2009-10. He also repeated his intention to examine proposals for formal processes to enable people who are threatened with death and torture but who do not qualify under the current legislated definition of refugee to apply for ‘complementary protection’. Senator Evans announced these measures in a meeting with Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, who is currently visiting Australia.

At the same media conference Guterres commented that that “When things go wrong in a country, there are two potential targets. One is the government, the other is the foreigners.”

Governments look for scapegoats when things go wrong. Did you see the episode of the Simpsons ‘Much Apu About Nothing‘ when Mayor Quimby, when faced with a ‘bear crisis’ about which he is ineffectual, tells the citizens of Springfield that all their problems will be solved if the run immigrants out of town. (This episode seemed to be inspired by the disgraceful 1994 California Proposition 187 that sought to deny government services — such as elementary school education and medical aid — to people who had entered the country illegally. Proposition 1994 passed at the polls, but was overturned by the court. Go courts!)

Scapegoating immigrant workers for the economic downturn makes about as much sense as blaming them for the presence of a bear. Migrant workers pay taxes (and often receive much lower levels of government services in return), and boost the economy by their production and their spending. Indeed, they can in fact save jobs.

Andrew Bartlett comments:

“Standing up against veiled and not so veiled attacks on migration, migrants and refugees – rather than encouraging them – will be a big test of leadership for governments around the world.”

Not a racist? You are a fool or a liar

It is easy to be horrified by overt racism. But there is much racism of which we are unconscious. (Test your unconscious prejudices)

Michael Shaw of the Huffington Post says

“Show me any person who says he does not consider race in his words, actions or deeds, and I will show you  either a fool or a liar”. In Defense of Racism

Michael gives a heartbreaking quote from Jesse Jackson:

“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery-then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

Tara Sena-Becker, tongue in cheek, says that it is a universally recognised truth that kidnappers prefer blondes. Kidnappers prefer blondes

She is referring to the awful oddity that, in the US, disappearances of white girls such as Jon-Benet Ramsey obsess the media for years, but South American, African and Asian girls are given barely a passing glance.

Sena-Becker  says:

“When viewing such images, it soon becomes apparent that not just any young woman is qualified to be a victim. There are specific criteria that must be met before she can even plausibly be considered.”

Are non-white victims of crime invisible in Australia too?
Share your views in the Comments.

How racist is Australia?

An article titled Take back your Portuguese worker: how racist is Europe? lists current events that indicate that “ill-treatment and racist crimes seem to be tolerated more and more”.

The list:

• This month the German government is answering to the UN human rights council following Iran’s condemnation of the ‘dramatic rise’ in criminal offences against foreigners in the country
• The last group of Portuguese workers to have been hired to work in the UK went back home under pressure from the protesters
• Irish anger about the near doubling of unemployment rates has been directed towards the country’s primary immigrant population: the Polish
• In 2008 the Pew Centre questioned 4,700 people in six European countries to find out their perception of Jews and Muslims. Everywhere the figures are increasing, sometimes reaching more than 50% of those with unfavourable opinions toward minorities.

“About 15 percent of Australians have experienced racism within institutional settings like the workplace and in education. About one-quarter of Australians report the experience of ‘everyday racisms’.”

That is a finding in a 2003 paper by Kevin Dunn in which he said that “Anti-Muslim sentiment is very strong”, and also reported findings of intolerance against Asian, Indigenous and Jewish Australians.

The recession has only just started to bite in Australia, and I pray that the marginalised migrants among us are not targeted, but statements like that of Professor Birrell last week will not help.

Guest worker fun

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikhaela/533809564/

Professor Birrell, please be careful

A professor who is well-known in the field of migration research yesterday said of the 457 visa program:

“People at the lower end of the spectrum are becoming permanent residents. They’re vulnerable to exploitation because the employer knows they’re not going to quibble with what he’s offering them because they’re desperate to get the permanent resident nomination.” 457 visas ‘may cost local-born their jobs’

Professor Birrell is quite correct that many 457 visa holders are ‘desperate’ for Permanent Residency (see my post ‘Permanency, the best address’)

I agree that the situation of sponsored temporary migrants makes them beholden to their sponsoring employer, and so vulnerable to the unscrupulous, but Birrell’s statement carries the implication that they will continue to be vulnerable to exploitation even after they achieve PR – in effect demonising migrants per se.

In addition, Birrell asserts that holders of 457 visas are subject to less stringent language requirements. Less stringent than what? Workers on 457 visas must pass an English competency test of IELTS level 4.5 or above.

Is Professor Birrell using outdates information from the time when the Howard government did allow some workers in without English competency?

Prof Birrell is also quoted as saying that “there is no labour market testing, meaning employers do not have to demonstrate that the position cannot be filled locally’.

This is true in some areas, but is not fact in regional areas.

People who make public statements about the marginalised need to be scrupulous about getting their facts right, and above all not feeding, intentionally or unintentionally, the rants of bigots.

The ‘They take our jobs’ anti-immigrant extremists will enjoy quoting a Professor!

Don’t bash immigrants: They make our food!

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the economic climate is causing sales of beef and lamb to suffer while people opt for cheaper proteins: Steak out, snags in as shoppers cut grocery bills. As I said in a post a couple of days ago, it is recent immigrants who inevitably bear the brunt of financial downturns, and I don’t like the implications of Coles’s sales. The Chinese on 457 visas in Murray Bridge work at a lamb and beef processing plant, as do thousands of others across Australia and who are also desperately hoping for permanency. They may be made redundant, which for them means being sent home, before their hopes have a chance of being fulfilled.

Immigrants provide the great majority of food production in Western nations. The blogger at Imagine 2050 says in a post with the great title Don’t Bash Immigrants With Your Mouth Full:

“From the ground to the grocer, low-wage immigrants, refugees, and other workers of color are the very backbone of the nation’s food system. There is virtually nothing that is produced, picked, processed, packaged, and purveyed that does not have their touch. 62% of the workforce in the US meatpacking and poultry processing industry is Latino/a and Black.

There is no one in this country who eats unless immigrant workers provide the food.

Refugees, climate and economics: Guterres

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres briefed the UN Security Council last week about the increasing pressures on the UNHCR.

IN 2006, when Guterres last briefed the Security Council, refugee numbers were the lowest they had been in 25 years. This has changed dramatically, with numbers now at 11 million.

Guterres said that this has mostly been due to the conflicts in Iraq and Somalia. Crises stretching from south and south-west Asia, through the Middle East to Sudan, Chad and the Horn of Africa – account for about two-thirds of the world’s refugees.

The causes of forced displacement have become even more complex and interrelated, and exacerbated by climate change and now by the impact on the developing world of the current global economic recession. UNHCR News