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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRacism undermines support for government spending
White Americans oppose a wide range of benefits because of the false perception that they would mainly help black peopleFebruary 16, 2016 2:00AM ET by Sean McElwee
Racism divides the American political system, strengthening opposition to social programs and reinforcing a plutocratic agenda. This is the lesson to draw from new YouGov data, which reveals that most Americans wrongly believe African-Americans make up a majority of welfare recipients and are net takers.
The survey, an Internet-based poll with a sample of 1,000 respondents, was performed between Jan. 23 and 25. I requested that YouGov researchers ask respondents questions about how they perceive government benefits across race and class lines, in order to examine how racial prejudice affects these views.
As political scientist Jason McDaniel and I have shown, racial resentment strongly predicts opposition to government aid to the poor and support for the Tea Party. Extensive political science research shows that racial animus strengthens anti-welfare views and motivates right-wing movements like the Tea Party.
Politicians and journalists fuel these racist narratives. President Ronald Reagans famous denunciations of welfare queens and a strapping young buck buying steak with food stamps offer quintessential examples of the former. As for the latter, political scientist Martin Gilens finds that network TV news and weekly newsmagazines portray the poor as substantially more black than is really the case. In fact, the elderly constitute less than 1 percent of the black poor shown in these magazines (compared with 5 percent of the nonblack poor) and the working poor make up only 12 percent of poor blacks (compared with 27 percent of poor non-blacks).
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/2/racism-undermines-support-for-government-spending.html
LonePirate
(13,431 posts)The recent KY governor election illustrates this point perfectly. Bevin campaigned hard against the ACA and his deepest support came from poor white people most impacted by this stance.
monicaangela
(1,508 posts)if you look at most statistics regarding poverty in America, you will notice most polls divide poverty by race in order to show how Blacks and Latinos are alarming more poor as a group than whites. Most of the time you don't get the rationalization behind why this is. Whites make up the majority of the nation, and through government intervention have been able to keep their heads above water. This is some whites, not all. Even with government intervention many whites, more than African Americans and Latinos by the way are poor in this country. If groups are always to be lumped together so that racism can help politicians get elected then which group is the must gullible? I believe if the statistics were reported in a manner in which we really understood that just how many whites in this nation are suffering due to the shenanigans of these politicians we would be on the road to correcting a problem that has existed in this nation since inception.
What many in this nation need to understand is the fact that the nation is becoming equal when you begin to count minorities and whites. Soon the whites will not be the majority in this nation and all of this racism and degradation that has been visited upon the Native American and all other minorities is going to begin to bring the country down. Minorities have bad schools in their communities, they are prohibited from many opportunities that would allow them to function better in a global world, in my opinion this will lead to the downfall of this nation. A nation that is not prepared for the future because of racism is a nation doomed to fail. That means all of us, not just minorities.
pampango
(24,692 posts)to achieve in the US than in some other countries.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/inequality-delusions/
phantom power
(25,966 posts)What they mean when they say illogical shit like "keep government out of my medicare" is really more like "Hey government, stop providing the social safety net to minorities, and send more to me and mine. Because those non-beige people are all drug dealers and welfare queens. Saints Reagan and Rush told me so!"
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)or won't admit that racism persists who are the problem.
Until we deal with race in this country, there will be no improvement.
Economic equality be damned. There has been some economic parity between the races, but that has NOT stopped racism and discrimination.
It's the racism itself that fuels economic inequality and class disparities.