LETTER TO THE EDITOR RE: TESTING TESTING, BIGOT 1-2-3
by Craig Macartney
November 20, 2008

I've notice a few trends in our society. Often authorities are afraid of being seemingly racist so they go to extremes to try to make everyone happy. In doing so they often adopt other prejudice. The extent of our efforts (as Canadians) to make sure we do not appear racist has actually ended up building a degree of ethnic prejudice. For example: I worked with a group of people who always complained about Quebec and 'the French.' This was not because they were raised to hate French Canadians, it was a bitterness that came from how difficult it has become for people who don't speak French to find good paying jobs. They all felt that they were being discriminated against as English speaking Canadians while they said French speaking Canadians were more likely to get jobs in Government or around Ottawa.


I have seen similar bias in many areas and for the same reasons but I still believe that the statistics given from the online test are high, so I took the racist test referenced in the article. I found it was really set up with far too much room for error so that you appear racist. It asks you to sort pictures to the right or left, depending on whether the person is white or black and with words that are positive (ie: Joy) or negative (ie: horrible). Then it puts African AND Bad on one side and White AND Good on the other. You have to sort a mixture of faces and words to the right sides. After a while it flips them so that White and Bad are on one side and African and Bad are on the other. This change threw me off because you are supposed to do this fast. I got used to putting the African faces on the left and when it switched I was thrown off. The program reads every mistake that you make a bias against that group. In the end I was told that I am strongly racist against black people. This is totally wrong. I love African people. In fact, my biggest ambition in life is to go to Africa and set up orphanages and programs for the underprivileged and poor people there.