General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe most racist places in America, according to Google
Where do America's most racist people live? "The rural Northeast and South," suggests a new study just published in PLOS ONE.
The paper introduces a novel but makes-tons-of-sense-when-you-think-about-it method for measuring the incidence of racist attitudes: Google search data. The methodology comes from data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. He's used it before to measure the effect of racist attitudes on Barack Obama's electoral prospects.
"Google data, evidence suggests, are unlikely to suffer from major social censoring," Stephens-Davidowitz wrote in a previous paper. "Google searchers are online and likely alone, both of which make it easier to express socially taboo thoughts. Individuals, indeed, note that they are unusually forthcoming with Google." He also notes that the Google measure correlates strongly with other standard measures social science researchers have used to study racist attitudes.
This is important, because racism is a notoriously tricky thing to measure. Traditional survey methods don't really work -- if you flat-out ask someone if they're racist, they will simply tell you no. That's partly because most racism in society today operates at the subconscious level, or gets vented anonymously online.
Washington Post
This is from April of last year, but still an interesting technique to survey attitudes which people may find uncomfortable to express.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Alas, I can't get through their paywall.
LiberalArkie
(15,715 posts)underpants
(182,803 posts)Hard to figure, that one.
former9thward
(32,006 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)Explains quite a bit.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)I live in RI and I don't think it is as bad here as other places. I live in a very diverse city in a very diverse neighborhood,
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)former9thward
(32,006 posts)your preconceived state bashing?
Igel
(35,309 posts)I was stunned by the sheer amount of racism when I moved to Houston.
From the white apt. manager who assured me that our application wouldn't be a problem because "we don't want people like that here," to "burnt toast" references, to black kids who simply won't work with white kids or "Mexicans" (um, many are Salvadoran-Americans and most were born here) or the Latinos that really don't like working with blacks or whites. We won't mention the school fights between rival ethnicities.
Then there's the guy who blasts R&B every chance possible, to teach "them people" the "right kind of music" for the neighborhood, and who's kids are picking up when he's away from the loudspeaker system to play rap.
Equal opportunity "my group is better than the others because ______________." And confusing honest pride with supremacism and rejectionism.
Truly amazing.
beerandjesus
(1,301 posts)....since his supporters are SOOOOOO racist!
EDITED TO ADD: Since the Hillary supporters are bound to say this after any state he wins: Oh, he's EXPECTED to win all those states anyway!
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)...to read "The most explicitly racist places in America..."
Searching for nasty names on the internets is not an absolute measure of overall racism.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)1939
(1,683 posts)The map shows frequency of google search on the "N-word" and not racial attitudes.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)It's one take based upon one arbitrary criterion, that's all.
1939
(1,683 posts)Just off the top of my head, I could conjecture why most of the red areas are red as there has been racial conflict there. The one that puzzles me is the western half of the upper peninsula of Michigan. I cannot see why that is not as deep a blue as the Dacotas.