Friday, October 20, 2017





If Noah had lived in our century...








Babies develop racial bias as young as six months old, study shows

Learning to discriminate is an essential part of human life -- and that includes discriminating between different people

Before they're even old enough to walk, babies have racist tendencies, two studies found.

University of Toronto researchers found that infants as young as 6 to 9 months show racial bias — contradicting the popular view that it first emerges in a child’s preschool years. Still, bias is believed to be learned behavior.

“What this means is that we’re not really born with some kind of racial bias,” said lead researcher Kang Lee.

Lee said he believes the phenomenon is not a result of parents teaching their kids to discriminate. Instead, it’s a function of the homogenous environments in which most children grow up.

S.C. toddler explains decision to buy doll that's different race
“One very likely source of bias is our lack of exposure to other — raced individuals in the first six months of life,” said Lee, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. “That lack of exposure sets up this bias.”

The first study found infants older than six months associate people of the same race with happy music, and those of other races with sad music. Researchers came to that conclusion after testing 193 Chinese infants, ages 3 to 9 months, who had never had direct contact with people of other races.

The babies were shown videos of six Asian women and six African women, paired with either happy or sad music. Infants less than 6 months old didn’t associate happy or sad music with members of any particular race, the study showed.

But at nine months, the babies gazed at their own-race faces paired with happy music for a longer time. They did the same for other-race faces paired with sad music, researchers found.

“This suggests that when children see an other-raced person, they already have negative associations,” Lee said.

The second study examined whether the race of an adult factors into a child’s learning skills.

Researchers showed babies videos of adults of different races either looking toward or away from photos of animals.

When the adults were looking in the direction of the animals — indicating they were reliable — the infants followed them equally regardless of race, the study found.

The same results held when the adults were looking in the wrong direction — indicating that they were unreliable.

But when the adults were only sometimes accurate, the infants were far more likely to follow the gaze of adults of the same race.

The takeaway, Lee said, is troubling: Babies are less likely to learn from people of a different race than their own.

SOURCE





Håkan Juholt: Sweden “On the way to becoming a dictatorship”

The former Socialist leader Håkan Juholt is now making sharp criticisms of social developments in Sweden, which he believes is heading for a dictatorship. He himself has moved to Iceland and does not intend to set foot in Sweden again for several years.

It is in an interview with Svenska Dagbladet that the Socialist Democrats former party leader Håkan Juholt paints a bleak picture of Sweden.

He believes that in the long run, the country will undoubtedly become a dictatorship.

– How old is your son? Four? When he is old he will not live in a democracy but in a technocracy, or a dictatorship. It’s so bad in the hell. I’m sad to say that, but I’m 100 percent confident. We are in the process of decommissioning democracy, he says to Svenska Dagbladet.

According to Juholt, tanks will not roll on the streets of the country, but the dictatorship will be more sophisticated than that.

He points out that fewer people are elected by the parties while the parties tune down their ideology. Juholt believes that Sweden’s future will be ruled by an “elite” and not by the citizens themselves.

Democracy is slipping out of the hands of Swedes, he says.

Håkan Juholt himself has been working for a while as ambassador in Iceland. He is very serious in his statements and also explains to SvD that he is not going to visit Sweden once in the next few years. He is so worried about the development here.

Håkan Juholt could today have been Sweden’s prime minister but was forced to resign as Socialist leader in January 2012 following a media campaign on parliamentary compensation for his overnight apartment in Stockholm.

SOURCE






Boy Scouts: It's Time to Look Elsewhere

Rebecca Hagelin
   
One of the finest organizations for boys used to be the Boy Scouts of America, which provided parents with amazing help in raising young men of character and responsibility.

But with the sad announcement last week that the Boy Scouts will no longer be the Boy Scouts, the organization now is going to treat boys just like another girl.

My husband and I will always be grateful for the years our sons spent in scouting and the lessons they learned on their way to achieving the Eagle Scout rank.

In addition to the hard work and community service required in scouting, the camping, camaraderie and sometimes goofiness that occur when a bunch of boys hang out together were a real hoot to observe.

I’ll always cherish the magical years of watching my husband and the other patient Scout leaders corral the often scatterbrained, hormone-driven, hysterically funny boys as they learned to focus and complete manly tasks. Awards ceremonies for individual achievement of various milestones were punctuated by the expressions of pride on the young, freshly scrubbed faces as little men stood at attention and received their patches and pins.

By doing manly things, boys became manly in their own minds, a critical component in actually becoming a man. The Scout program was successful because it helped boys truly believe that manliness was something to be achieved and treasured.

Sorry folks, but you just can’t do that when you throw a bunch of girls into the mix.

The “manly” things they did, like learning to find their way out of a dense forest with only a compass in hand, build a fire from twigs and stones, and dress themselves in a clean uniform subject to inspection, were coming-of-age rituals designed to make boys learn to be independent.

Yes, yes, yes, of course girls can learn to do those things too. But there’s something really special and important about guys roughing it on a camping trip and jumping from rope swings into a swimming hole without having to worry about what the girls might be thinking.

The major focus of Boy Scout instruction has been on the impressionable years of 11 to 16, when minds and hearts immersed in goodness, adventure and the company of men who fully embrace their masculinity can mold a boy into someone he could be proud of becoming. The opposite of today’s politically correct little cabal, a Scout troop was the crucible where a boy became a man.

And not just any ‘ol man, but a man with the character traits that our nation and families need. Consider the Boy Scout Law, enforced in every activity and which boys were required to memorize and live by in order to advance. It is a recipe for creating a chivalrous man if ever there was one: “A Boy Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”

Reflect for a moment on the Boy Scout Oath, which I’m willing to bet anyone who spent even a year as a Boy Scout can still recite to this day:

“On my honor, I will do my best
"To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;
"To help other people at all times;
"To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.”

Several years ago, however, the Scouts abandoned its time-honored principles of teaching fidelity and helping support boys to be “morally straight” when it decided to open its troops to openly homosexual leaders and students.

When the BSA decided to become “politically correct” by pandering to the homosexual activists and abandoning its principles and the families that believe in them, it was only a matter of time that it would decide to further destroy the mission of the organization by allowing girls in too.

Of course, the next step will be the removal of a pledge to God and country. Believe me, it’s coming.

Those who seek a genderless, homogenous society where everyone and every group is forced to be the same are celebrating the demise of the Boy Scouts.

But for parents who still strive to help their boys grow into men and their girls grow into women, and to celebrate the beautiful differences found in both genders, it’s time to look elsewhere for help.

Check out Trail Life USA (TrailLifeUSA.com) for your sons, and American Heritage Girls (AmericanHeritageGirls.org) for your daughters.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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