Are Millennials Post-Racial Or Tolerant Racists

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The topic of race has been an ongoing controversy for the past decades, however some perspectives on race are starting to change. The U.S. has become more and more diversified in race, but the idea of a post-racial generation still cease to exist. Millennials, as we call them, are those of ages 18-33, but there’s something a special about this generation. They are seen as the country’s most racially tolerant and diverse generation in history. On the other hand, recent studies have shown that these millennials’ opinions “do not reflect reality” and are rather close to those of the older generation. In the Al Jazeera America’s article “Are Millennials Post- Racial or Tolerant Racists” author Sean McElwee uses demographics and logical arguments…show more content…
The implicit-association test (IAT) measures the automatic preferences of each individual being given the faces of Europeans and African Americans. The test was given to various age groups and each individual was also to not their own self-reported bias. While each age pool showed differences between the IAT and self evaluation, McElwee provided the fact that the older generation is “off by 0.38 points and those in the youngest two brackets underreporting their bias by 0.52 on average.” In other words, millennials view themselves as highly tolerant and therefore able to accept other races and discrimination. Although they perceive themselves to be post racial, the data proves that younger generation struggles to face reality (racism is still very real and present in our nation). In addition, the article states, “One-fifth of white millennials said “a little/none at all” needs to be done.” McElwee uses this statistic to prove that there is a different intake on race relations and even makes a statement that “White millennials are more optimistic about the state of race relations.” McElwee examines further into the color pool of millennials as well to discover the measure of prejudice of different races. The amount of statistics that McElwee provides convinces the reader into believing the

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