I am a 28-year-old white woman. I am a secretary and youth worker. I live in Western Massachusetts. Here were my results:
IAT results:
-Your responses suggested a moderate automatic preference for Dark Skinned People over Light Skinned People.
-Your responses suggested a strong automatic preference for Black people over White people.
-Your responses suggested a strong automatic association for American with Native American and Foreign with White American.
-Your responses suggested a slight automatic association for American with Asian American and Foreign with European American.
These results surprised me, because I am white, but in some ways show a different kind of bias that I grew up with. My mother claimed that she raised us "color-blind" but I always noticed race. I was always intrigued by how nearly all the Barbies in the store were white. They looked like me- blue eyes, blonde hair, white-skinned, thin. But my best friend growing up was a black girl who had a bunch of cool black "Christie" dolls that totally entranced me. And I remember asking specifically for "Theresa" dolls who had a more brown skin tone and brunette hair. I was in 2nd grade when I started reading the American Girl books and I thought it was so cool how diverse the characters were. We couldn't afford the dolls, though, so I became sullen with my non-diverse Barbies. In was 8 or 9 the first time I saw Barbie release an Asian doll and I was over the moon.
In kindergarten, we had one black boy, one black girl, one Asian boy, and one Asian girl in our mostly white class. I remember being very young in school when we read books about Ruby Bridges and Rosa Parks and talking about Black History Month. I was totally stunned that there was a time I wouldn't have been able to play with my best friend, or that the kids in my class wouldn't be allowed in the school.
One time the black girl was bullying me, but it seemed like it was because the other girls were being mean to her first. I didn't know why but I remember writing her a note that said, "I'm sorry you're sad. It must be hard being the only black girl and the only adopted girl in the class! I really like you." I don't remember at all what prompted me to see through that perspective, except that I noticed what made her different.
I think somewhere along the line, I started noticing that white was the majority, and I prided myself on not being a part of the norm. I never thought about my whiteness, but I also started to believe that I looked boring. I thought black people had the most beautiful skin and Asian people had such pretty eyes and in middle school, all the girls that I wanted to be were Latinas with bouncy dark hair. For a while in late middle school and early high school, I started looking into Islam because I thought headscarves were elegant-looking and that the power to cover-up my growing body sounded like a luxury.
I expected to hold a lot of pro-white bias because I have grown up white in a society that works for white people. I did not expect my results to lean so strongly in the other direction. In some ways, it feels like maybe I have grown up fetishizing people of color for how "exotic" and "non-boring" they appeared to me. But also, I have been raised with diverse media, black friends, and I started learning about racism and privilege over 10 years ago. So it's hard to know where exactly these biases come from.
