About AAV
Americans For American Values is a consortium of researchers from universities across the country and social justice advocates from a wide range of groups and perspectives who came together to devise new ways to counter implicit bias – allowing us all to make important decisions about elections and public policy without being influenced by racial, ethnic, or gender-related anxiety.
Click the links below to expand or contract each topic
2008 Work
2008 Work. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, we saw many ads designed to activate white racial fears. These included an ad showing Obama linked to “dangerous” black politicians like Kwame Kilpatrick of Detroit, an ad in which Obama appeared to be leering at Sarah Palin, and an ad in which his face morphed into a wolf’s face. These ads and the comments were made by a cross-section of whites suggesting underlying unconscious bias – “I just don’t trust him,” “Something about him makes me uneasy,” and after almost 2 years of campaigning, the refrain, “I don’t feel like I really know who he is”. The national political conversation demanded a counter balance that would enable people to make a decision based on information rather than on appeals to racialized fear.
We brought together national experts in addressing unconscious bias and counteracting “stealth” racial appeals, including Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation (D. Westen, PublicAffairs Press, 2007), Celinda Lake, principal of Lake Research Partners, Camille Charles of University of Pennsylvania, Mahzarin Bahnaji of Harvard’s Implicit Bias Project, Eva Patterson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Society, Ludovic Blain, of the Center for Social Inclusion, and Jerry Kang, of the UCLA Law School, to design ads which would have the effect of:
- Priming conscious values regarding racial discrimination;
- Addressing unconscious racial attitudes and conscious concerns; and
- Measuring the conscious and unconscious impact of ads using cutting edge technologies.
In the short time between our inception in mid-September 2008 and the middle of October, we designed, produced, tested and disseminate several ads that powerfully addressed and countered the implicit racial bias that might have threatened people’s ability to make their decisions based on consciously held values and beliefs.
The Work Ahead
The Work Ahead. We are continuing to engage in the work of understanding and disrupting the effects of implicit bias in our society. The need for this work is apparent – as the Right’s reaction to the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor makes abundantly clear. We are now engaged in a study of the efficacy of affirmative action messages in swing states, again working with Drew Westen and Celinda Lake. We are also actively reviewing several other research proposals.
