This is interesting. It goes a bit beyond stating the bleeding obvious but confirms what we may have suspected. It's here: Racial bias clouds ability to feel others' pain, study shows. And perhaps a summary quote would be: "'This default reactivity of human beings implies empathy with the pain of strangers (i.e., a violet model) if no stereotype can be applied to them,' said Alessio Avenanti of the Universit�di Bologna. 'However, racial bias may suppress this empathic reactivity, leading to a dehumanized perception of others' experience.'"
It's good to know that empathy is a default for us (though we kind of knew that from research on mirror neurons and on early learning in infants). It is insightful to have confirmed that conceptual and affective dehumanising of others can radically interfere with empathy. Presumably this also helps us to begin to understand why counter-prejudicial actions such as helping people to meet others as 'human beings' (love your enemy?) are important and can work.
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