What do you see?

[Xendance]

Hi, just wondering what people see in these two images ... answer the poll.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

Glasses n' teeth.

 

[Viperidae]

One crazy hat.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

danny glover and sally struthers

 

[The Monkey]

I thought this was gonna be the one about the old woman or the young woman.

 

[Maturin]

Problem is, we see the poll options first.

 

[Darkside55]

I see a new reaction image, and I chuckled at the filename for the second pic.

 

[Dan]

A black guy in Chicago and Catherine Donofrio who was slain by her boyfriend (who was also black and also a police officer).

 

[L3N!N]

It's a black man and a white woman. Big deal.

 

[Vegeta897]

Scrolled through the images and thought in my head "a man. a woman."

Ya'll are racists.

 

[Dekstar]

The poll options put it in context.

 

[lefty]

guy from n'orleans and a high school graduate

 

[staticprimer]

Poll options are far too limiting.

 

[Vegeta897]

It's supposed to be limited... The poll has a purpose that would just be hindered by irrelevant answers.

Also I bet the results would be pretty different if the woman were first. It appears most people who they see the man they think "black man" and are then put in the mindset of noticing race.

If the woman were first you can't tell me everyone would think "white woman" first.

But all that aside I'm pretty sure a lot of people did this poll incorrectly. Either they're trying to pretend they treat black and white people equally in their mind by voting option 1, or after looking at the images they're trying to just describe what they saw accurately instead of listing what the first thing that came to their minds was, which is what the poll is trying to do.

 

[Barnz]

Your father, and mother.

 

[Krynn72]

A black man and a white woman. You're racist or an insensitive jerk if you see anything else.

 

[Remus]

Old black hobo with glasses, and a white bitch.

 

[Insano]

It's not racist. I've been indoctrinated. It's normal is you never see black people that you unconsciously go: "Hey, look a black guy!"

My next thought was "and what a fugly is that other woman".

 

[Acepilotf14]

I don't see what's wrong with classifying people based on race.

It doesn't mean I'm prejudiced, it just means THAT I CAN ****ING SEE DIFFERENCES.

I am also not convinced the first one is a man at all.

 

[Xendance]

Haha thanks everyone.

I did this to a few people on msn and they go "a black man" and then after they said "a woman" so I was wondering if other people were like them and have to point out that he's black.

 

[Ennui]

Scrolled through the images and thought in my head "a man. a woman."

Ya'll are racists.

liar, acting like you're so without prejudice that you wouldn't notice someone's skin color is complete bullshit. when i looked at it I thought "old black dude and young white chick", and you can extend the list of adjectives pretty far in either direction. being free of prejudice doesn't mean you don't notice what race someone is, it means you don't presuppose them to be a better or worse person for it.

 

[gFrohman]

I see a black man & a white woman, partly because of societal upbringing, but also because I saw the poll choices before the pictures, so I already knew in a way what to expect from the pictures (i.e. a self-fulfilling prophecy).

 

[Vegeta897]

My second comment was a joke.

And I wasn't lying.

And I'm not saying I didn't notice his race, that's just not part of what came to my mind when I saw the picture. :| Which is what the thread is asking.

 

[Insano]

I think you also have to make a difference between the US, where the blacks have already started taking over the country, and Europe.

 

[Kadayi]

Problem is, we see the poll options first.

This.

Not much of a test really.

 

[Insano]

I didn't see the poll options first though. I saw the girl, then the man and finally the options. I thought they were going to say "a robber and an innocent girl", etc.

 

[jet_porkins]

I chuckled at the filename for the second pic.

Quoted for emphasis.

 

[Dekstar]

It's supposed to be limited... The poll has a purpose that would just be hindered by irrelevant answers.

Also I bet the results would be pretty different if the woman were first. It appears most people who they see the man they think "black man" and are then put in the mindset of noticing race.

If the woman were first you can't tell me everyone would think "white woman" first.

But all that aside I'm pretty sure a lot of people did this poll incorrectly. Either they're trying to pretend they treat black and white people equally in their mind by voting option 1, or after looking at the images they're trying to just describe what they saw accurately instead of listing what the first thing that came to their minds was, which is what the poll is trying to do.

While I agree with this, seeing the poll options did skew the experiment by alerting us that this was going to be asking us if we saw the colour or not. It's like giving us a picture of a pink elephant and asking "Did you notice the elephant was pink?". Had we been asked what the picture was, we might have said simply "elephant", assuming the colour of said elephant was inconsequential.

 

[Warped]

I saw a black man and a white chick. They look like they have nothing in common

 

[StardogChampion]

But all that aside I'm pretty sure a lot of people did this poll incorrectly. Either they're trying to pretend they treat black and white people equally in their mind by voting option 1

Not really. Option 3 actually means you're pretending you treat black and white people equally.

Most people would've clocked some of the poll options first, and if they were white they would be more likely to think "black man," and they'd go on to think "white woman" because her skin colour contrasts so strongly being right under the photo.

And after reading the poll options I don't see how anyone couldn't choose option 1. It should've been obvious at that point it was a question about race.

 

[Dalamari]

No choice for old man/young woman?

 

[Musk]

Because you put the two together I say black man and white woman. If the man were by himself I'd say Black man. If the women were by herself I'd say just a women. Interesting how the mind works.

 

[Vegeta897]

And after reading the poll options I don't see how anyone couldn't choose option 1. It should've been obvious at that point it was a question about race.

But it's not, really. It's a question of what you thought of when you saw the pictures. It involves race, yes, but it's not asking you to consider race. That's the part it's supposed to be testing.

 

[RedGuard]

Stupid poll.

I saw a black man and a white women. Everyone did.

However, I do not classify people by their race, I see a man and a woman. However one is black the other is white. Had one of the answers been 'white woman in a dress' I would have clicked that. And so on, until the details of the poll matched the pictures perfectly.

Very little can be learnt from this poll, especially given the order of the options.
Would be better to go up to strangers, show them the pictures and ask what they see.

Even then... it's a stupid poll.

 

[Hobostomp]

the guy looks like a combination between Grimace and The Hamburglar

 

[Lucid]

Black man and a young unattractive woman.
Almost thought this was going to be about a rape.

Everyone here is a liar if rape didn't enter into their minds for a second.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Without looking at the thread - only having seen the OP - I would like to make the prediction that this is Xendance's attempt at a boring social experiment. He is probably trying to prove that everybody is a racist, because they see 'a black man' and 'a white woman'. Presumably the ideal and utopian situation is where one sees only a man and a woman, or, better yet, just two human beings.

Obviously it's absurd to suggest any of us should feel guilty because we are products of our time and place. And to a certain extent maybe we should be glad that we are attentive to the problems of category and definition that occupy our culture. I'm not sure it would be very useful if we were completely blind to distinctions that are still, ideologically, very important. I would be very happy if everyone suddenly stopped seeing race. But as long as race is a factor in behaviour and society I do wonder how desirable it would be to be able to ignore it.

Despite the crudeness of the experiment I suppose it does reveal something about the way people think (in categories), as if people didn't already know. What might be interesting is the light it throws on the hierarchy of categories. When asked to describe what they see, most people have probably (honestly) thought or said 'a black man and a white woman' (I haven't looked at the poll). But if it had been a white man and a white woman, they would almost certainly have merely said 'a man and a woman'. The black man is something other than a normal 'man', existing outside of the centre; in our situation, by default, man is white. This is the problem that many feminists have: by default, they claim, man is a man. I think that may be a deeper-rooted distinction at least in the West. We say "a black man" rather than "a male negro" (I guess?), and when the phrase "old white men" is used to describe the demographic problems of the judiciary or the political class, note that old and white are both attributes, whereas man is something the person fundamentally is. In all cases merely manipulating the arrangement of things - putting the picture of the black guy first, or saying 'old male whites' - is enough to quite vividly show the problems inherent in the act of perception.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I WAS RIGHT. And I wasn't the first one.

I should probably note, obviously enough, that the bias isn't going to be universal - it's culturally produced. See how in racially-divided African countries people will speak of 'whites' and 'blacks' much more often. Equally obviously, I'm pulling this out of my ass...but it is a damn fine ass.

 

[Ennui]

i love you skulldoods. nice triple post

 

[Remus]

Post that wall of text one more time Sulkdodds, I know you want to!

EDIT: editing bitch