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Showing Original Post only (View all)White People Think One Black Person's Success Proves Racism Is Over [View all]
Last edited Fri Jun 13, 2014, 09:20 AM - Edit history (1)
Rebecca Hiscott
Posted 06/10/2015
As the votes were tallied for the 2008 presidential election, conservative pundit William Bennett weighed in on the election's significance. Ill tell you one thing it means, as a former secretary of education, Bennett said on CNN. You dont take any excuses anymore from anybody who says, The deck is stacked.'
Bennett, who is white, suggested that if Barack Obama could become president, so could any black man. Implicit in the argument was that systemic racial discrimination was no longer keeping black men and women from success.
Bennett is far from alone in arguing that a single black American's success is proof that impenetrable racial barriers no longer exist. In fact, it's a common view, according to a recent study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The study authors, Clayton R. Critcher, assistant professor at University of California Berkeley, and Jane L. Risen, associate professor at the University of Chicago, found that exposure to a single African-American in a high-performing position -- any position outside stereotypical jobs in which blacks traditionally excel -- is enough to make whites more likely to deny the existence of systemic racism.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/10/racism-success-study_n_5474419.html