"What are you doing?", asked Minsky.
"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-tac-toe" Sussman replied.
"Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky.
"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play", Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes.
"Why do you close your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher.
"So that the room will be empty."
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
But what would discourage such shallow thinking, is a media that sets a good example. If newscasters' generalizations are closer to the best interests of voters (e.g. "popularity among people in <profession>"), it may have a positive effect on attitudes in society.
Even when all the candidates are white males, black people tend to vote for the white male that supports affirmative action and civil rights over the white male who does not.
Telling stories about black vs white candidates/voters are too profitable to passed up.
For example, during the election I saw CNN blabbing about each candidate's popularity among white women voters or black voters or this or that, and I just turned it off. The whole problem is that people treat these as relevant and appropriate categories. The statistics should be completely uninteresting, in a color-blind world.