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Claims of ‘post-racial’ society and other denials of racism may reflect ignorance of history
Asian News International: New research has suggested that commonly observed differences in how groups perceive racism may be explained by ignorance about, and even denial of, the extent of racism over the course of history. The research, conducted by psychological scientists at the University of Kansas and Texas A and M University, indicates that African Americans had more accurate knowledge of historically documented racism compared to European Americans. This difference in historical knowledge partially accounted for group differences in perceptions of racism, both at a systemic and an incident-specific level. ...
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How Manti Te’o Could Have Fallen in Love with Someone He Never Met
TIME: In what must be the most jaw-dropping sports story to emerge in a week of jaw-dropping sports stories (hello, OprahLance!), it emerges that star Notre Dame footballer Manti Te’o had a girlfriend who never existed. That would not be much of a tale—who hasn’t had at least one fake dalliance?— except that Te’o, a probable first round pick in the NFL draft in April, became famous when his grandmother and that girlfriend were said to have died in the same 24 hour period in September and he still went out and left nothing on the field for the fighting Irish. ...
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Around the Block With an Expert
The Wall Street Journal: It takes Alexandra Horowitz about an hour to walk around a city block—but only if she's trying. "If I walked this way all the time, I'd never get anywhere," said Ms. Horowitz, author of "On Looking: Eleven Walks With Expert Eyes." In the book, which landed in stores last week, she hits the pavement with an urban sociologist, a typographer, a toddler, artist Maira Kalman (whose illustrations pepper the text) and a blind woman, among others, and relates their relative "expertise," depending on their particular vantage point. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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Mental Health Gun Laws Unlikely To Reduce Shootings
NPR: States aren't likely to prevent many shootings by requiring mental health professionals to report potentially violent patients, psychiatrists and psychologists say. The approach is part of a gun control law passed in New York yesterday in response to the Newtown, Conn., shooting a month ago. But it's unlikely to work because assessing the risk of violent behavior is difficult, error-prone and not something most mental health professionals are trained to do it, say specialists who deal with violence among the mentally ill.
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Contemplation: A Healthy State of Mind
Most dieticians will tell us that the first step in achieving a healthy body weight is buying a good bathroom scale. The second is using it, regularly. Knowing our weight keeps us honest, and this basic bit of information is a key motivator for the nutrition and exercise changes needed to stay fit over the long haul. And it’s simple and effortless. Except that it’s not. Many people do not have a scale, and what’s more, do not want one. Or if they have one, they never use it. There are many explanations for such avoidance. Some people hold on to a bygone image of themselves, believing that they are still fit and healthy. They don’t want this cherished delusion shattered.
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That Loving Feeling Takes a Lot of Work
The New York Times: When people fall in love and decide to marry, the expectation is nearly always that love and marriage and the happiness they bring will last; as the vows say, till death do us part. Only the most cynical among us would think, walking down the aisle, that if things don’t work out, “We can always split.” But the divorce rate in the United States is half the marriage rate, and that does not bode well for this cherished institution.
