Hmm, Allow me to digress, if only slightly depending on your perspective...
First of all this was a very interesting test of sorts. And I'm not going to dismiss the merits of it's findings nor am I advocating it's accuracy or methodology. To me it's just a study that yielded some results that may very well reflect the social constructs of society.
My background; I'm of mostly African ancestry, born and raised in the UK with a short span in Singapore, and as an adult lived in the Caribbean for a couple years (Jamaica), in Brazil for three years, and 14 years to present in the USA. I grew up not being exposed to or knowing much about discrimination and/or prejudice, aside from what I saw in Hollywood movies until I arrived in the USA. And talk about baptism by fire as it came at me from all angles, blacks, Asians whites.. you name it. But that really isn't my point here!
The results show that I associate the races going from good to bad as follows with good at the top and bad at the bottom:
Asian
White
Black
Hispanic.
For me personally, I'm not particularly shocked at the alignment of my "preferences". But what these results don't show is whom someone from my background considers to be black, white etc... Why wouldn't someone like me who is clearly black (by American standards) have black at the top of the list? Well to understand that, you'd have to have a clear understanding of what is "black".
"Black" is a North American construct, short for Black American, not African. Having been born in England, I?m well aware that the term Black wasn?t widely used in Europe until American ideologies started crossing borders. We mostly identified Negros as African (even if you nor your parents were born in Africa), and Bi-racial was more widely used than it was in the US to describe people who fit into that descriptive category. Or simply enough we called them Brits! Yup, like the whites and Asians and all the other races living in the UK. Also having lived in the Caribbean for a few years, I?ve learnt that people of African descent do NOT like to be identified as Black American, or for short ?Black?. For example, in Jamaica they prefer to be called West Indians. This is in no way to suggest that they more identify with Mongoloid (native Indians) than their Negroid ancestry. In fact, they are quite proud of their African ancestry. In Brazil, due to different social and political pressures, people identify with their African ancestry differently. They have a variety of terms; Moreno, Mulatto, Negao, Claro? amongst others. And they were not derived in any efforts to dismiss and/or disguise their Negroid genes. The same applies to The Dominican Republic. You cannot apply North American ideologies to the rest of the Western World and expect everyone to fit neatly into your social constructs. Their history and culture evolved differently than in the U.S. and therefore their ethnic identities were molded accordingly.
Going away to college in the USA was a difficult time for me because blacks didn't readily identify with me and my funny accent, and my lack of being down with the lingo. I was questioned, where is my cultural identity? How do blacks talk in the UK? Well my black brother they talk just like white people do!... And you can already see the disconnect forming! Whites were more accepting, not because they were nicer people. I think they just loved my British accent, as it was part of "their" ancestry and they probably thought it was somewhat nostalgic or just cute. So, from a social point of view, in my 10+ years in the USA I never managed to align my self with Black Americans the way I had hoped. On emotional and spiritual levels and sometimes even politically, I certainly do align my self with Blacks here, but not so much culturally. So in hindsight this test doesn't address my personal situation. And rightfully so, it was designed for the masses not for the individual.
As far as blacks are concerned, here's what I do believe this test does bring to light. The word "Black" has an insurmountable amount of negative connotations attached to it. And most of them have nothing to do with race. You don't have to look very far either. Just go to the English dictionary for pete sake. Aside from it's reference to hue, the word black is used to describe almost everything negative; dark and gloomy, to erase, obliterate, or suppress, dirty, filthy, soiled, sad, depressing, somber, doleful, mournful... and the list goes on! This is what lives in our subconscious minds. And on the contrary, (go look up white); pure, bright, clean...etc. So while you are sitting there doing this word association survey comprised of negative words along with a picture of a black person, and then a white person, and shades in-between, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know what kind of results to expect. The results are mostly a representation of your subconscious mind and your paradigms at work. And less a reflection of your convictions about race. The danger is when your paradigms regarding these specific associations start bleeding into your rational thought process and you find yourself on the wrong side of hatred without even knowing how you got there.