Saturday, January 15, 2011

Study: Blacks are twice as likely as whites to have performed a heroic deed

According to a study conducted by the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, and featured in an article in USA Today, blacks are twice as likely as whites to have performed a heroic deed. That finding seems dubious to me.

Society implicitly has different expectations for different groups, and the "hero" bar is often set much lower for blacks than for whites. For example, when the restaurant chain Firehouse Subs issued "hero cups" in 2009 to honor firefighters who had displayed "incredible acts of bravery," they selected four white men and one black woman as heroes. All four of the white men had risked their their own lives to rescue civilians in life-and-death situations, while the black woman's act of bravery was "spearheading a community-based program to strengthen fire safety education for seniors."

Similarly, the Stanford study muddles the definition of hero by conflating real acts of heroism (e.g., helping another person in a dangerous emergency) with, for lack of a better word, "affirmative action" acts of heroism (e.g., defying unjust authority, confronting an injustice). The USA Today article doesn't break the list of heroic actions down by race, and I wasn't able to find the study online, but I suspect non-whites were more likely than whites to have chosen "defied unjust authority" or "confronted an injustice." Those terms are so vague that acts such as resisting a police officer or attending an "anti-racism" rally would seem to qualify.

Even if blacks were more likely than whites to report having "helped someone during an emergency," that could be because of differing views of what truly constitutes an "emergency." It seems like whenever there's a news report about an angry fast food customer who made a frivolous emergency 911 call, whether because the restaurant ran out of chicken nuggets or lemonade, because their french fries were served cold, or because they were dissatisfied with the amount of food they received, the caller is invariably black. I wouldn't consider mediating a heated fast food dispute a heroic act, but some black people might.

Or maybe I'm off on this one.  Maybe the harsh realities of inner city living provide blacks with greater opportunities to respond heroically in emergency situations, and more often than not they rise to the occasion. I don't know.

40 comments:

  1. Race,

    You've got it all wrong. Don't you watch TV? The hero is always black!

    Regards,

    Nicholas Stix

    ReplyDelete
  2. The entire "study" is based upon self-reporting, and as blacks have an inflated sense of self-esteem already, just add in popular mythology of the magic negro (aided and abetted by Hollywood) and there you have it: a plethora of "heroes of color." Just this past Sunday at church, the main musician strongly urged everyone to see a new "Christian" movie coming out, called "The Grace Card." You see, he said, there's a racist White cop (who's trying to deal with the death of a child) and his saintly black partner who's studying to become a minister. As I said, the magic negro strikes again. Now I know why there are blacks in America - to save our evil white souls.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just celebrated the day after MLK Day by watching a home Hollywood double-feature consisting of Independence Day + Sum of All Fears. In both cases, a black (Will Smith, Morgan Freeman) and a Jew (Jeff Goldblum, Ben Affleck) saved the world. For sure, its made a believer out of me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Some" of you white people think that whites are God's gift to green effin earth and blacks just mess up everything. The way you guys think us black people is the way the rest of the world of us and you (whites)too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. When ever a 'black' does the NORMAL thing, they get a slot on the tonight show. IF they save a life, you better believe we would know their entire biography within 24 hours.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The funny thing is, when you types hear a story about black heroism, you rack your brains to think of how they could have contrived it. On the other hand, when you hear a story about black underachievement, all of a sudden you take it at face value without considering the many ways it might have been a setup. What a fascinatingly quick switch-around from skeptic to believer! That says it all about racists, really, you only see what you want to see.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't know who you are, or what ethnicity you are, but I agree with you 100%. In my short lived life, I've seen numerous- I mean so many people, of all races who believe that the African-American being is destined for failure. As if achievement, or greatness only happens in movies. In my opinion, every culture has it's good and bad sides and just because a few people make mistakes doesn't give others the right to categorize and make huge generalizations about an entire group of people. For instance, what you said- and on the other hand, one culture saying that all mexicans like hispanic food, or lower class whites live in trailer parks- it's just not right.

      With that said, there are a handfull of African-Americans who believe that achievement is beyond their reach, calling there own brothers and sisters "white washed" for having an education and aspiring to have a career.

      As a young woman, who is half African-American and half Native-American, President of the Black Student Union at my school, and lead volunteer at the Native-American Family Center, I am closely knitted with both sides of my family. Sure, some people barely graduated from high school, others dropped out, and a hand full of us went to college. Nevertheless, I will never stop striving to be my best and helping my community. I know that miracles happen and anyone, regardless of their culture, background, upbringing, lifestyle, etc. can achieve greatness- they just have to WANT it and WORK for it. My grandpa always said, "Nothing in life is free, if you want something you better go work for it"

      "From skeptic to believer" is right, if you look at history: black is deemed as bad in nearly every culture. Black is darkness and darkness is evil, so of course people, especially those who know nothing about our culture is going to relate to the historic moments of African-American achievement. However, history has also shown that Black is a sign of empowerment and brillance; Garrett Morgan (African-American Inventor) created the traffic signal. Elizabeth 'Bessie' Coleman, was the FIRST American to hold an international pilot license, not only that but she was the FIRST African-American female pilot. George Washington Carver, who was a slave and didn't go to college until he was 30 years old, invented peanut butter. Elijah McCoy invented an oil dripping cup for trains, others did the same but NONE worked as good as his. Lewis Latimer invented the part of the light bulb that actually LIGHTS! Without him there could be no "city that never sleeps" (New York). Jan Matzeliger invented the FIRST lasting shoe and the nailing machine. And of course, President Barack Obama himself.

      I'm just saying, every culture has their "heros" and their "villans" and only ignorant people, with one-sided thoughts categorize an entire culture of people into a stereotype such as this bloggers and many of the commenters. In the end, all you can ever do is educate, hope, and pray that the negative opinions of others diminishes and more people rise to the occasion of heroism in all aspects of life.

      Delete
  7. Assuming there is any validity to this report, it could be because blacks tend to live among other blacks - and so there are a lot more emergencies to respond to. One hears a lot more sirens in black neighborhoods than in white ones.

    Re: anonymous, because of the media bias in favor of blacks, we tend to be skeptical. If the "news" (and other powers that be) were balanced, we would give it more credibility.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I definitely enjoyed every little bit of it, I have you bookmarked to check out all the new stuff you post.

      Delete
  8. "because of the media bias in favor of blacks, we tend to be skeptical."

    But the alleged "media bias in favor of blacks" is your assumption. That's the point. If you are selectively skeptical towards all stories of black heroism because you hold such an assumption, you place yourself in a position where you REJECT ANY EVIDENCE that could prove you wrong, ie. a state of delusion.

    Thinking people do not behave like you.

    ReplyDelete
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