首页
登录
职称英语
Obama’s Success Isn’t All Good News for Black Americans
Obama’s Success Isn’t All Good News for Black Americans
游客
2024-03-06
26
管理
问题
Obama’s Success Isn’t All Good News for Black Americans
A) As Erin White watched the election results head towards victory for Barack Obama, she felt a burden lifting from her shoulders. "In that one second, it was a validation for my whole race, " she recalls. "I’ve always been an achiever, " says White, who is studying for an MBA at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. "But there had always been these things in the back of my mind questioning whether I really can be who I want. It was like a shadow, following me around saying you can only go so far. Now it’s like a barrier has been let down. "
B) White’s experience is what many psychologists had expected—that Obama would prove to be a powerful role model for African Americans. Some hoped his rise to prominence would have a big impact on white Americans, too, challenging those who still harbor racist sentiments. "The traits that characterize him are very contradictory to the racial stereotypes that black people are aggressive and uneducated, " says Ashby Plant of Florida State University. "He’s very intelligent and eloquent. "
Sting in the tail
C) Ashby Plant is one of a number of psychologists who seized on Obama’s candidacy to test hypotheses about the power of role models. Their work is already starting to reveal how the "Obama effect" is changing people’s views and behavior. Perhaps surprisingly, it is not all good news: there is a sting in the tail of the Obama effect.
D) But first the good news. Barack Obama really is a positive role model for African Americans, and he was making an impact even before he got to the White House. Indeed, the Obama effect can be surprisingly immediate and powerful, as Ray Friedman of Vanderbilt University and his colleagues discovered.
E) They tested four separate groups at four key stages of Obama’s presidential campaign. Each group consisted of around 120 adults of similar age and education, and the test assessed their language skills. At two of these stages, when Obama’s success was less than certain, the tests showed a clear difference between the scores of the white and black participants—an average of 12. 1 out of 20, compared to 8. 8, for example. When the Obama fever was at its height, however, the black participants performed much better. Those who had watched Obama’s acceptance speech as the Democrats’ presidential candidate performed just as well, on average, as the white subjects. After his election victory, this was true of all the black participants.
Dramatic shift
F) What can explain this dramatic shift? At the start of the test, the participants had to declare their race and were told their results would be used to assess their strengths and weaknesses. This should have primed the subjects with " stereotype threat" —an anxiety that their results will confirm negative stereotypes, which has been shown to damage the performance of African Americans. Obama’s successes seemed to act as a shield against this. "We suspect they felt inspired and energized by his victory, so the stereotype threat wouldn’t prove a distraction, " says Friedman.
Lingering racism
G) If the Obama effect is positive for African Americans, how is it affecting their white compatriots (同胞)? Is the experience of having a charismatic (有魅力的) black president modifying lingering racist attitudes? There is no easy way to measure racism directly, instead psychologists assess what is known as "implicit bias", using a computer-based test that measures how quickly people associate positive and negative words—such as "love" or "evil"—with photos of black or white faces. A similar test can also measure how quickly subjects associate stereotypical traits—such as athletic skills or mental ability—with a particular group.
Drop in bias
H) In a study that will appear in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Plant’s team tested 229 students during the height of the Obama fever. They found that implicit bias had fallen by as much as 90% compared with the level found in a similar study in 2006. "That’s an unusually large drop, " Plant says. While the team can’t be sure their results are due solely to Obama, they also showed that those with the lowest bias were likely to subconsciously associate black skin color with political words such as "government" or "president". This suggests that Obama was strongly on their mind, says Plant.
I) Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who runs a website that measures implicit bias using similar tests, has also observed a small drop in bias in the 700000 visitors to the site since January 2007, which might be explained by Obama’s rise to popularity. However, his preliminary results suggest that change will be much slower coming than Plant’s results suggest.
Talking honestly
J) " People now have the opportunity of expressing support for Obama every day, " says Daniel Effron at Stanford University in California. "Our research arouses the concern that people may now be more likely to raise negative views of African Americans. " On the other hand, he says, it may just encourage people to talk more honestly about their feelings regarding race issues, which may not be such a bad thing.
K) Another part of the study suggests far more is at stake than the mere expression of views. The Obama effect may have a negative side. Just one week after Obama was elected President, participants were less ready to support policies designed to address racial inequality than they had been two weeks before the election.
Huge obstacles
L) It could, of course, also be that Obama’s success helps people to forget that a disproportionate number of black Americans still live in poverty and face huge obstacles when trying to overcome these circumstances. "Barack Obama’s family is such a salient (出色的) image, we generalize it and fail to see the larger picture—that there’s injustice in every aspect of American life, " says Cheryl Kaiser of the University of Washington in Seattle. Those trying to address issues of racial inequality need to constantly remind people of the inequalities that still exist to counteract the Obama effect, she says.
M) Though Plant’s findings were more positive, she too warns against thinking that racism and racial inequalities are no longer a problem. " The last thing I want is for people to think everything’s solved. " These findings do not only apply to Obama, or even just to race. They should hold for any role model in any country. "There’s no reason we wouldn’t have seen the same effect on our views of women if Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin had been elected, " says Effron. So the election of a female leader might have a downside for other women.
Beyond race
N) We also don’t yet know how long the Obama effect—both its good side and its bad—will last. Political sentiment is notoriously changeable: What if things begin to go wrong for Obama, and his popularity slumps?
O) And what if Americans become so familiar with having Obama as their President that they stop considering his race altogether? " Over time he might become his own entity, " says Plant. This might seem like the ultimate defeat for racism, but ignoring the race of certain select individuals—a phenomenon that psychologists call subtyping—also has an insidious (隐伏的) side. "We think it happens to help people preserve their beliefs, so they can still hold on to the previous stereotypes. " That could turn out to be the crudest of all the twists to the Obama effect. [br] Brian Nosek’s preliminary results suggest the change in bias against blacks is slow in coming.
选项
答案
I
解析
由题干关键词Brian Nosek’s preliminary results定位到I段最后一句。同义转述题。由定位句可知,布莱恩.诺斯克的初步研究结果表明,改变对黑人的偏见将是一个缓慢的过程。题干中的is slow in coming对应原文中的will be much slower coming,故选I。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3511722.html
相关试题推荐
Thekeyelementtosuccessfulinterviewingisnotyourexperience,yourgrad
Thekeyelementtosuccessfulinterviewingisnotyourexperience,yourgrad
Thekeyelementtosuccessfulinterviewingisnotyourexperience,yourgrad
Thekeyelementtosuccessfulinterviewingisnotyourexperience,yourgrad
Thekeyelementtosuccessfulinterviewingisnotyourexperience,yourgrad
[originaltext]Whenitcomestosuccessintheschoolenvironment,whatare
[originaltext]MedicalexpertssaymostAmericansdonotgetenoughsleep.T
[originaltext]MedicalexpertssaymostAmericansdonotgetenoughsleep.T
Obama’sSuccessIsn’tAllGoodNewsforBlackAmericans
Obama’sSuccessIsn’tAllGoodNewsforBlackAmericans
随机试题
Thefutureofpersonalsatellitetechnologyishere—arewereadyforit
中国高脂血症预防指南(2007版)中将血脂通常分为哪几类()A:混合高血脂血症
防止大体积混凝土浇筑后产生裂缝的方法有()。A.采用矿渣水泥 B.加高效减水
临产18小时,宫口开大2cm,为A.正常产程 B.潜伏期延长 C.活跃期延长
衡量计量器具质量的主要指标是( )。A、灵敏度、分辨率、动态特性 B、稳定度
某甲欲购买一台电脑,一日,其友某乙去出售电脑的丙贸易公司办事,某甲遂请某乙转告贸
下列选项中属于基金暂停估值的情形的有()。A:基金投资涉及的证券交易所暂停营业
布雷顿森林体系是以黄金为基础,但却是以美元为主要国际储备货币的国际货币体系,自此
为对冲风险,该基金需要交易()手国债期货。A.380 B.327 C.29
A.后遗效应 B.过敏反应 C.致癌、致突变 D.毒性反应 E.停药综合
最新回复
(
0
)