Racism, Baseball and Unconscious Thought
http://tinyurl.com/23nys9a
Last Sunday, Evan Longoria and B.J Upton got into an argument over B.J.
taking his time chasing down a ball hit to the wall. This confrontation may
seem like a small spat between teammates, but may have an unseen racial
impact with people that saw it.
First we will need to take a step back and look at how the brain works. In
the book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, he states:
"First of all, we have our conscious attitudes. This is what we choose to
believe. These are our stated values, which we use to direct our behavior
deliberately.....our second level of attitude, our racial attitude on an
unconscious level, the immediate, automatic associations that tumble out
before we have time to think. We don't deliberately choose our unconscious
attitudes"
Observers of the confrontation between Longoria and Upton probably didn't
even notice the race of the players, but our unconscious mind is being told
something else. It is see the black player (Upton) as lazy and the white
player (Longoria) as the leader and putting the black player in his place.
The racial under tone is not limited to just the Longoria-Upton argument. I
know there are plenty of examples that contradict the this example, but are
those players making the headlines that we read everyday. Milton Bradley is a
trouble maker. David Eckstein is a gritty veteran. Chris Brown is a
malingerer. Pete Rose was Charlie Hustle
In most of our normal daily activities, the racist unconscious is a non
factor, but as Malcolm Gladwell states:
"It's a powerful predictor of how we act in certain kinds of spontaneous
situations."
The people that have a bunch of spontaneous situations during a game that
witness the behavior are the players, managers and umpires. The umpire could
have seen the flare up in the Rays dugout on Sunday and he has to make a call
on a close play and his mind has to make a decision between a white catcher
and a black base runner.
I am not sure if there is a workable solution to this problem. As Galdwell
states:
"It [un-biased associations] requires that you change your life so that
you are exposed to minorities on a regular basis and become comfortable with
them and familiar with the best of their culture, so that when you want to
meet, hire, date, or talk with a member of a minority, you aren't betrayed by
your hesitation and discomfort."
The media will not change what they report on, so what we see, hear and read
will always be out of our control. I think the best way to fight this issue
as fans is to understand the what is going on in our unconscious mind and
look in our personal lives for chances to train our brain differently.
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07/01 12:39, , 1F
07/01 12:39, 1F
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