What Colour Do You See In?

According to new research from the University of Toronto Scarborough, a team led by PhD student Jennifer Gutsell and Professor Michael Inzlicht found that there is a basic difference in the way people's brains react to those from other ethnic backgrounds. The researchers had study participants, all of whom were white, view a series of videos while hooked up to electroencephalogram (EEG) machines. In the videos, white, black, South Asian and East Asian men picked up a glass and took a sip of water. It was noted that observing someone of a different race produced significantly less motor-cortex activity than observing a person of one's own race. That means people were less likely to mentally simulate the actions of other-race than same-race people. Apparently, the trend was even more pronounced among those participants who had high scores on a test measuring subtle racism.
Inzlicht says, "The so-called mirror-neuron-system is thought to be an important building block for empathy by allowing people to 'mirror' other people's actions and emotions; our research indicates that this basic building block is less reactive to people who belong to a different race than you.", but also notes that there are cognitive exercises available that can increase empathy and understanding.
It's good to know about those exercises, of course, but having taught junior kindergarten and found four-year-olds in the class already regurgitating mom and dad's words of hatred, I wonder just how effective we can hope those exercises to be with adults. That might just be too many years of twisted thinking for it to be set straight. I also wonder why the research team used only white subjects for their testing. Shouldn't the testing be administered as well to members of the various groups pictured in the videos?