“Opinion is cheap: facts are sacred.” It’s rather easy to call someone racist: you just open your mouth and say the words. Hey, it’s so easy, even a liberal can do it!

What are the facts, though? Who is actually racist (which I take to mean: preferring some races to others) and who isn’t? Psychometricians have been working on this for more than a decade, and have come up with some tests. The best-known is the Harvard Implicit Association Test. I submitted myself to it, and posted the results here.

The Harvard IAT has generated some controversy: I’ve posted a couple of links on that page, and you can easily find more by googling. What in this area is not controversial, though? The rule of thumb with all these personality tests is to compare their results with what you know about yourself, and with what people who know you well are willing to tell you. On that basis, my own IAT scores seem to me pretty sound.

I respectfully suggest that nobody should use the word “racist” until he has first taken the IAT and posted his results online.