The human brain works in interesting ways, ways we don't even fully understand. It interprets the world around us, processes our thoughts, and influences us with our subconscious. It also makes interesting connections -- which is why you can read a document with missing letters and largely put together the puzzle pieces.
It can also notice patterns when you are more aware of them. When this writer bought her car a couple of years ago, a Honda CRV, she suddenly noticed a lot of Honda CRVs on the road. It's just how the brain works. It sees patterns of a familiar thing.
So it's not really a surprise that the rotten work of the 'anti-racist' movement has made people see racism everywhere -- even in the most innocuous of things. That's precisely the point and purpose: it was a solution in search of a problem:
Huge new result:
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
Anti-racism trainings probably lead people to accuse others of racism even when they're not racist.
That's exactly the result of a new study on DEI trainings, with a special focus on the impacts of the works of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo.
Let's dig in🧵 pic.twitter.com/htpQRDqosN
Everyone knew this would happen.
In the first experiment, the researchers took 324 participants and randomized them to either read an Ibram X. Kendi or Robin DiAngelo excerpt or to a racially-neutral condition where they read about corn.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
Here are some excerpts from the reading materials, for your understanding: pic.twitter.com/XzWcCsplpB
Look, science.
After learning, for example, that western countries are compromised by virtue of their racist ideologies and pasts, participants were presented with a scenario that was totally racially neutral.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
The scenario is described as follows, and everyone involved did nothing racist: pic.twitter.com/nAabHT1k3P
Oh, look. Nothing racist.
The participants who were exposed to the 'racism' scenario imagined more racism into existence.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
They believed there was a lot more bias, tons of microaggressions and whatnot, even though there was nothing. pic.twitter.com/knfr0fFNiW
Which is how DiAngelo and Kendi want things to be -- because they get rich.
What's worse, the participants who read the DEI passages also wanted to punish the "offenders" who—I'll remind—literally did nothing racially biased.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
They were more likely to want to harm people who did nothing due to their own imaginations. pic.twitter.com/QbFAUPNcjI
This is scary.
These findings were so shocking and forceful that the authors immediately sought to replicate them.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
They gathered a nearly three-times larger sample and found... the same results! pic.twitter.com/owOjCszEeQ
Anti-racism is toxic.
After either reading about corn or materials from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), participants were then asked to evaluate identical trials, for either the clearly-Muslim Ahmed Akhtar or the clearly-just-White George Green. pic.twitter.com/S38opuEIHF
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
We can all guess where this is going.
Participants though the trial of Ahmed was considerably more unfair after they "learned" about Islamophobia.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
But once again, there was no bias. They just read the DEI materials and invented the bias in their minds. pic.twitter.com/TqmgloUaHk
Surprise, surprise!
But why? Mechanistically, it does not seem that learning about (and seemingly believing in) Islamophobia increased tolerance for Muslims.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
What it did was just to increase the perception of bias. Islamophobia materials did not boost positive sentiment towards Muslims: pic.twitter.com/oIothWv6j7
It's not about tolerance. Never was.
A final major point of DEI trainings nowadays is caste.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
I am referring not to "involuntary caste" stuff a la scholars like Ogbu, but to the Indian caste system.
As the timeline shows, its supposed importance has rapidly gained acknowledgement across the U.S. pic.twitter.com/wDQ0P8Rmya
We wonder if Matt Walsh learned about caste. He is a DEI expert, after all.
Despite institutional acceptance that caste matters, and in particular because of bias against members of low castes, most Americans probably still don't understand caste.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
So in this experiment, participants were exposed to caste oppression information, or to neutral caste info: pic.twitter.com/M1KRj9ythM
And, once more, they set up a scenario.
Participants were then exposed to a totally caste-neutral scenario in which an Indian admissions officer at an elite East Coast university interviews Raj Kumar and, ultimately, Raj gets rejected. pic.twitter.com/AjJQA4pOVT
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
Guess what happens?
We bet you can guess what happens,
As you might predict from the other results, the nearly 850 respondents who read about casteism invented a lot more caste bias into the scenario than people who read about caste in general. pic.twitter.com/zphMvYXdbb
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
As predictable as the sun rising in the east.
Not only that, but the people exposed to casteism reading material were more likely to see Hindus as racists and to want to punish the admissions officer. pic.twitter.com/sjZmWdNaow
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
There's that punishment again.
What was really alarming was that, after the casteism readings, people were considerably more likely to agree with explicitly anti-Brahmin statements that were really rough, like "Brahmins are parasites", "Brahmins are a virus".
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
These seem like damaging ideas to promote! pic.twitter.com/ny6hNcVi7F
Wow.
That's actually racist.
Which is what DiAngelo and Kendi want -- more racism. So they can sell more books and more lecture tickets.
Turning back to the original sample, we see something interesting: the people who scored higher on Left-Wing Authoritarianism were more likely to want to punish the people they believed were being racist.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
Keep that in mind. Now let's review. pic.twitter.com/ojdAoWGiP9
Yes, let's review.
All these large-scale studies, with their simple designs, and direct and conceptual replications, with all of their results, support several conclusions.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
First, DEI training introduces narratives that lead people to assume certain groups are oppressors and others are victims.
By design.
Second, DEI trainings lead to hostile attribution biases, leading participants to see discrimination when there is none.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
DEI trainings ironically promote racial prejudice, hostility, suspicion, and division.
It's all intentional, ironic but intentional.
Third, DEI trainings lead to demands for punishment again perceived oppressors, as well as the ideologically impure.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
This happens despite the perception of being an oppressor always being wrong in these studies.
Tell us more about how conservatives are the authoritarians here.
Fourth, heightened suspicion of "oppressors" and the "impure" triggers people with authoritarian tendencies to endorse surveillance, purity testing, strict social control, and ever-increasing responses that range from corrective to coercive.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
Authoritarians want to punish.
People like DiAngelo and Kendi want punishments for those who don't toe the line.
They are authoritarians.
And fifth, the heightened punitive atmosphere generated by DEI trainings feeds into demands for more anti-oppression trainings, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of totally needless suspicion and intolerance.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
And certain people make lots of money off of this.
DEI trainings have been noted to be ineffective at promoting tolerance and productivity, and plenty of people have noticed backfiring.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
This adds a new dimension that teaches us about feelings and perceptions of oppression more generally.
DEI training is not just counterproductive, it's harmful.
With these results in mind, we now know that people are more than willing to totally invent racism and other forms of bias in their heads and to want to harm people because of fully-imagined bias on those people's parts.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) November 25, 2024
The era when everyone was colorblind was better.
It sure was.
Keep this in mind. DEI needs to D-I-E.
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