We like to think that racists are choosing to hang on to their bias because they don't know any better. Those of us who are educated--or who think--can overcome any bias through information and intention. Right?

Tell that to our brains.

A recent study done at Dartmouth College presents some interesting ideas about racism and brain. According to widely published results of this research, racism can actually cause stupidity. Even professors from esteemed universities like Stanford are quoted as saying such things as "Racism really does make people stupid."

Well, that makes for an interesting sound bite, but it's a bit misleading.

Here's what happened: white test subjects with a bias against black faces performed poorly on a cognitive skills test after being interviewed by an African American person. The more biased subjects were (based on their scores on Harvard implicit association test), worse they did.

What's fascinating about this study is that it is first to show through magnetic resonance imaging that there is a particular area of brain associated with efforts to say or do right thing. This "executive control" portion of brain showed increased activity during both implicit association test and interview.

Those who had scores indicating a greater bias showed most activity in their brains in this area as they struggled to refrain from making racist choices or offensive remarks. As this poor little section of brain was overloaded, subjects were temporarily unable to perform thinking tasks.

So, really, compelling notion here isn't simply that racism makes you stupid. It's that presence of someone about whom we feel a bias affects our ability to think. If you live in a fairly homogenous community, your bias--and "executive control" part of your brain--isn't really tested. However, if on a daily basis you interact with people toward whom you have a racial bias, your thinking becomes impaired, at least temporarily.

What really struck me about this movie, however, is fact that it was written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins.

Sondheim is a composer, famous for score to 'West Side Story'. Anthony Perkins was an actor, famous for his role in 'Psycho'. It seemed to me that these two were very lucky. Not only were they creative to point of celebrity in one area, here they were exhibiting genius in a whole other arena.

I was also awed on a recent trip to San Francisco. Across street from our hotel was an art gallery that was displaying work of actors Anthony Quinn and Tony Curtis. Much of work in this gallery was done in past ten years or so and was incredibly bold. If both of these individuals had focused on their art, they still would have become famous. Again, I was struck by how creative some people allow themselves to be. They didn't put stoppers on their creativity, allowing it to spill over into an entirely different sphere.

Between these two events I realized that I have come to a different understanding about creativity. When I first saw 'The Last of Shiela', I thought creativity was something of a 'have or have-not' situation. Either you had it (and then you had a LOT of it), or you didn't have any at all. Indeed, for many years, I was positive I fit into 'none at all' category. I also thought it was restricted to 'creative' arts such as drawing, painting, sculpture, etc.