RANCHER BUNDY'S LESSON ABOUT RACE

Bundy’s racism is showing. The conservative media is running like scared rabbits away for his “outlandish”, “untimely”, and “out of order remarks”. Amazing! What is the truth? Are they really appalled by the Bundy revelations or are they hiding their own feelings with pretended shock and awe as the events of the last few weeks sink in. I think there is truth in drunkenness just as there is truth in knee jerk response, meaning people tell are more apt to tell the truth in these situations than after  they set back and think out their responses. This is one of the messages of the book, Thinking Fast and Slow [Daniel Kahneman]. If someone shows you a picture of a black face, and asks you to pick, as rapidly as you can, from a short list of words: good, bad, beautiful, ugly. The tester repeats the process by showing you a white face followed by the same list of words. If the time it takes to pick a word is measured, psychologists have shown if you are not telling the truth, it takes longer to respond then if you tell the truth. Readers can sort out all the possible permutations. It should be intuitively clear. For a white raciest living in a society where people frown on racism, then the knee jerk or innate response is to pick ‘bad’ or ‘ugly’ when shown the black face but you may “decide” to pick the words ‘good’ or ‘beautiful’. I t is the time that you take to reason out your answer that is measured; it is not the answer but the time.

Clevin Bundy standing in a pasture, with a microphone shoved in his face, for the first time in his life as the center of attention, surrounded by people with American flags and high-powered rifles will say what he believes. The next day he says or tries to say the opposite; which is the truth? Equally, on day two, Glenn Beck Sean Hannity, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and a long list of conservative etceteras say they do not support Clevin Bundy.

The real question is “Can we make a rational judgment about how people feel about racism by their political affiliations?” I look at the map of the United States with the colors and shades of colors indicating Republican and Democrat affiliations; usually done by “actual” voting patterns—not what someone thinks they are going to vote but the way they actually voted. It is well to note that I did not use the descriptive ‘conservative’ and “liberal’ but political party affiliation. Political Party affiliations are less innate and more influenced by political ads and other forms of social pressures. Tragically, the map has a region of the United States that is red, red, red meaning Republican voters. How many of those are Republicans because of the race issue and how many of those are Republican because of conservative verses liberal philosophy, of course, the same question can be asked of the liberals. How many of them are liberals because of their views on racial issues.

Any scientist will tell you correlations can be misleading. The classic example of that is the fact that in the United States, teachers’ salary increases are coordinated with liquor consumption. It is wrong to say that Republicans are racists just as it is wrong to say all tall people are basketball players. Nevertheless, it is not wrong to say that basketball players are tall people. As I repeatedly point out in posts on this web site, I believe that at least 33% of our politics is genetic. Physical attributes just like psychological attributes are extremely variable. This is troublesome for some who think, “If it is genetic, it is fixed”. I believe that unlike physical attributes, height for example, we can modify our overt personalities, our xenophobia for example, over time to make this a more pleasant world in which to live. I hope that Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and a long list of conservative political etceteras have received that message but I especially  hope that Clevin Bundy as well as a few of those nut cases in his pasture have learned something as well. 

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