A Surprise Lesson In Racism

In this video a news crew sets up an experiment. They hire three youth actors to vandalize someone's car in broad daylight to see who will responds and who won't. They hardly get challenged at all. But what happens during this surprises the news crew, because 911 gets a couple of calls on three other kids waiting in a car.Some people thought they looked like criminals trying to rip off a car. The difference? The guys who were vandalizing a car were just actors who were white and the car belonged to the news crew so no real harm was being done. The other youths were black kids.

It's kind of an eye opener. It's almost nine minutes long.



I'd appreciate keeping comments until after you've seen the video, please.

Edit:

I didn't realize there was a part two. In this part, they changed the youths who were vandalizing the car to black youths.

It is almost seven minutes long:

That was a good experiment.

I can't even imagine going through life with always being looked on with suspicion. There was definitely a disparity there. Really sucks they were reported for just sleeping in their car.

People will still deny it or say that it is black peoples fault in some way, to be honest I think people would call the police more often if they were Hispanic or Asian too.

Put the white kids in the same outfits as the black kids and I guarantee you would get more calls in to 911. Not going to even consider claiming there isn't a racial component, there obviously is, but I would be far more suspicious of people dressed like the black kids.

I have to admit I would have initially thought the white kids were messing with a friends car or vandalizing there own and that the black kids were up to no good. Not a fun thing to admit, but I do have my racial biases and there is no sense pretending I don't. Would have ended up confronting and calling the cos either way, but I would have been quicker about it with the black kids.

Originally posted by Domo1
Put the white kids in the same outfits as the black kids and I guarantee you would get more calls in to 911. Not going to even consider claiming there isn't a racial component, there obviously is, but I would be far more suspicious of people dressed like the black kids.

I agree, another method to put a "control" on this little experiment would be to put the white kids doing it in a black neighborhood and see what happens.

reply to post by Superhans


Not a good idea simply because we all know what would happens if you do that!

reply to post by Domo1


Yeah, comparing 3 relatively preppy white guys who can articulate their words correctly to 3 black guys dressed like that and talking like that is hardly fair. They should have had stereotypical equivalent and had some punk/skater kids beating up a car.

But I suppose that doesn't fit the agenda.

There are other factors to this besides "race" in this experiment- it comes down to who is normally in that area. You could set-up another "experiment" like this and have men in the women's underware section of a store asking women about the underware on the racks "Do you have these? How do they fit? Do they ever smell funny?: Then have women do the same thing, i can guarentee you that you will get different reactions, is this evidence of rampant "sexisim" in society? No, I don't think so just people out of place in an area. Im not saying that blacks do not belong in a white neighborhood Im just saying that it is different so it would draw attention.
Not to mention that this show clearly has an aggenda and I would love to see unedited versions of these experiments to see EXACTLY what happens when these experiments are done.

Try to be real to yourself when you answer the rest of my post, Try.

Your in the middle of a short street , and need to go completely around the block.

One one corner are three black youths, on the other corner , three white youths.

Which way do you go?

Originally posted by Tw0Sides
Try to be real to yourself when you answer the rest of my post, Try.

Your in the middle of a short street , and need to go completely around the block.

One one corner are three black youths, on the other corner , three white youths.

Which way do you go?

Whatever way i usually go

I love how people are trying to deny the results of these experiments.

Why is it so hard for you guys to beleive that we are still a very racist country???


And this really shouldn't be a "Surprise Lesson" to anyone...that is unless you have been telling yourself that racism doesn't exist.

Originally posted by OutKast Searcher
I love how people are trying to deny the results of these experiments.

Why is it so hard for you guys to beleive that we are still a very racist country???


And this really shouldn't be a "Surprise Lesson" to anyone...that is unless you have been telling yourself that racism doesn't exist.

edit on 7-8-2012 by OutKast Searcher because: (no reason given)

You are arguing two different things and they are both illogical when it comes to this experiment. Saying we are not a racist country is not the same as saying racisim does not exist. We are not a communist country that does not mean communisim does not exsist.
This lesson does not demonstrate "racisim" in any way, it is cleverly made to look that way but its not. Ask yourself is it really "racist" to stop black kids from vandalizing a car?

reply to post by Superhans


Actually there's a show called Head Games on the Discovery Channel that did something similar.

They did an experiment in the man. They had two male actors in it. One guy went down the escalator the wrong way. The other was in a straightjacket. Now here's what happened:

The guy who went down the wrong way was noticed. People insulted him pretty good.

The guy in the straight jacket was not.

So I really don't think you're scenario would work.

It might if they were dressed in black trenchcoats though.

reply to post by EvilSadamClone


That actually goes right along with what i said, the guy going down the wrong way was out of place. The man in a straight jacket was not.

reply to post by OutKast Searcher


OKS I've never denied that racism exists. In fact I always go out of my way to refer to it as a reaction based in fear and ignorance. What I tend to take issue with is when racism is described as a one way street. It's not. It's not even just a black / white issue... There are racists of every creed. I think this an important thing to recognize and discuss because you can't stop an argument unless you deal with all of the offending behaviors.

~Heff

reply to post by Superhans


Oh come on.

The black youths got far more calls and confrontations on them than the white youths.

I don't see how that it is not racism.

Originally posted by EvilSadamClone
reply to post by Superhans

 

Oh come on.

The black youths got far more calls and confrontations on them than the white youths.

I don't see how that it is not racism.

What is racist about it? Is it "racist" to stop black people from stealing or is it racist to stop white people from stealing? I don't follow the logic. While it is a single TV program there were MANY different people there, who is to say that the ones that would stop the black ones would also stop the white ones?
This is not a demonstration of racisim, this is just another reality TV show that trolls the US.