A Rat Race

Quite inappropriately, nonetheless this is my second article on biases.

In my earlier article I discussed how a certain pattern of thinking established over a long period of time begins to act as a blinder.

From the time of conquests, and with the British growing and then the rise of Capitalism and the USA, a notion very conveniently adopted was that the White in an unknown way was/ is a superior colour and consequently a white skinned race is superior. With the power in the hands of the Whites this notion was accepted.

This is also as we know called the Non-Sequitur Fallacy, where a conclusion in derived from a certain premise without there being any logical connection.

Though we have come a long way from history, and in the present world we now accept all colours of skin as equal. The fallacy is still continues. This can been seen in the attitude of certain Europeans, more than that, I turn my and you attention to its existence in the USA.

When a paper writes “it is surprising to see that Obama has reached this level in the presidential election”. What is the sentence in essence saying?

Is it questioning is his capability plainly on one hand, or questioning his capability and candidacy on the basis of his skin color? Whatever anyone says, I think the later is a fact.

 

I read an article where the author was explaining how if they voted for Barack Obama it would mean questioning their own social constructs. Then ego comes in, how can a person who has believed so far in his life that an African American is inferior negate himself, thus destroying his own social construct or in a way identity. And according to the author, his friends as well had a hard time deciding who to vote for.

Is that to say that the American people are essentially Racists?

Fidel Castro said so (recently), and to follow him many more.

And now in an attempt to rationalize why Americans would not vote for the seemingly more credible candidate, Barack Obama, Is the social desirability effect, if applied to this situation implies that Mc Cain, looks like a more favourable candidate, because of his skin colour, and Obama falls into the construct of a Black-skinned person.

It has been proved in previous psychological tests that many whites have a presumption that dark skinned people are violent and have a tendency to be into drugs.

So is the presidential election of USA going to end up being a race between two individuals or two skin colours?

That is a question that will be answered in a few days.

But until then, I hope that the elections do not prove Americans racist, and yet they choose the more capable of leaders.

[And I hope this sort of analysis works as reverse psychology :)]