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I can't remember what I was watching a few days ago when I saw a "coming up" commercial about Primetime I think it was...
Anyway, they had a bunch of hidden camera situations set up. One was a follow-up to what they had done before with a couple fighting and the male getting a bit abusive to the female. They had used a white couple and wanted to see what would happen with a black couple. Nothing too interesting there.
Different scenario - A group of boys (3-4 of them) are bullying another kid at the park. They're throwing his stuff (water bottle, books, backpack) around and teasing him. They noticed that not many people did anything.
When they had the kids dress up in gang affiliated colors and clothing. Whether they actually did this successfully is debateable. They were wearing red and black mostly and I think one kid was wearing blue, but their pants were baggier and at least one kid had the hood on his sweatshirt up. People were more quick to get involved whereas they had thought they'd be less likely to because of perceived risk to themselves.
Finally, the topic of the poll and the most interesting one IMO.
They had a camera and mic hidden in a cab and had the cab drivers make racist remarks and wanted to see what people would do. A few people made comments themselves. Most just avoided talking about it, but didn't disagree. A few said, I work with some [blank]s and they're good people or something to that effect.
My big problem with their "study" is that they're trying to generalize to how people respond to strangers who make racist comments, but they're not doing that. They have people in a CAB. If this person is saying somethign like "I'm sick of arabs... we should send everyone with brown skin back to where they came from" are you going to argue when they're in a position of control? What are your options if this person is insane and flips out if you disagree or call them on their crap? Are you gonna jump out of a moving car?
So, I'm thinking that people are going to be way more likely to shut up and not say anything in this particular situation because they're vulnerable. It's not a good way to get at the general topic of what people do when a stranger starts talking like that.
Sorry, this got so long, but what do you think? Do you think that's probably why most people didn't say anything of was it somethign else?
Anyway, they had a bunch of hidden camera situations set up. One was a follow-up to what they had done before with a couple fighting and the male getting a bit abusive to the female. They had used a white couple and wanted to see what would happen with a black couple. Nothing too interesting there.
Different scenario - A group of boys (3-4 of them) are bullying another kid at the park. They're throwing his stuff (water bottle, books, backpack) around and teasing him. They noticed that not many people did anything.
When they had the kids dress up in gang affiliated colors and clothing. Whether they actually did this successfully is debateable. They were wearing red and black mostly and I think one kid was wearing blue, but their pants were baggier and at least one kid had the hood on his sweatshirt up. People were more quick to get involved whereas they had thought they'd be less likely to because of perceived risk to themselves.
Finally, the topic of the poll and the most interesting one IMO.
They had a camera and mic hidden in a cab and had the cab drivers make racist remarks and wanted to see what people would do. A few people made comments themselves. Most just avoided talking about it, but didn't disagree. A few said, I work with some [blank]s and they're good people or something to that effect.
My big problem with their "study" is that they're trying to generalize to how people respond to strangers who make racist comments, but they're not doing that. They have people in a CAB. If this person is saying somethign like "I'm sick of arabs... we should send everyone with brown skin back to where they came from" are you going to argue when they're in a position of control? What are your options if this person is insane and flips out if you disagree or call them on their crap? Are you gonna jump out of a moving car?
So, I'm thinking that people are going to be way more likely to shut up and not say anything in this particular situation because they're vulnerable. It's not a good way to get at the general topic of what people do when a stranger starts talking like that.
Sorry, this got so long, but what do you think? Do you think that's probably why most people didn't say anything of was it somethign else?
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