Study Finds White Americans Believe They Experience More Racism Than African Americans

[M0rpheus]

http://politicalblindspot.com/study-finds-white-americans-believe-they-experience-more-racism-than-african-americans/

The study was conducted by Sommers and co-author Michael I. Norton of Harvard asking a roughly equal national sample of 209 Caucasians and 208 African Americans to indicate, on a scale of 1 to 10, the extent to which they felt blacks and whites were the targets of discrimination in decades spanning from the 1950s to the 2000s. The scale’s ranking of 1 indicated “not at all” while 10 indicates “very much.”

Both groups reported roughly the same things for the 1950s, with neither believing Caucasians experienced much racism at all during that turbulent decade. Both similarly agreed that at the same time, there was substantial racism against African Americans. Both groups also agreed that racism against African Americans has steadily decreased over time. But here’s where the study gets interesting. Caucasians surveyed believe that the discrimination faced by their African American neighbors has decreased much more rapidly than the African American respondents. Furthermore, they believe that while African Americans now have it better, they – the Caucasians surveyed – have taken their place as the primary targets of discrimination.

“These data are the first to demonstrate that not only do whites think more progress has been made toward equality than do blacks, but whites also now believe that this progress is linked to a new inequality – at their expense,” Norton and Sommers explain.

An astounding 11% of Caucasian respondents assigned the maximum rating of 10 to the seriousness of anti-white discrimination. Compare that with only 2% who reported the same of anti-black racism. Caucasians, the study found, often believe that racial equality is “a zero sum game,” where one group gains at the expense of others.

Short article. I found it interesting in contrast to DU's latest "White privilege warz".
While the sample size is small, it matches my experiences as of late, both online (especially online), and off.

[beachbum bob]

1. pure bs...unless it's stupid

Whites feeling discriminated against...

[MADem]

2. Well, let me think about that for just a moment....

I think a lot of those white guys think that anyone who calls them on their bullshit--be it being rude to people, being sexist, stuff like that...or if they are told they can't smoke in this restaurant or drink their brought-from-home booze in the ballpark, feel they're being "put upon" and they equate all of that in their heads to "racism."

[Jackpine Radical]

3. I'm white and have experienced racism every day of my life.

I went to a high school that was nearly all white (the only minority being Native Americans), and when Sputnik went up, we got a lot of science money poured in for fairly fancy lab equipment. Kids in the inner-city schools didn't get this sort of largesse.

I went to a university that was mostly white, and got an education that was denied to many black people because of poverty, inadequate education in crowded and dysfunctional schools, and other, more subtle effects of racism.

When I emerged from grad school, nobody ever questioned whether I was a product of Affirmative Action.....

No such questions were raised about me when I entered the job market.

And so on.

So yes, I did experience the effects of racism all the way along. I was the beneficiary of a racist society.

[Scuba]

4. My HS didn't even have any NA's, but otherwise, my experience mirrors yours.

[dgibby]

5. Speaking as a white American,

somewhere in America, there are 209 villages are looking for their idiots.

[JustAnotherGen]

9. Ha!

[SoCalNative]

6. Study also finds

most white Americans are delusional.....

[DreamGypsy]

7. The title of the study report is Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing...

...and it opens with a quote:

Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another.
– United States Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala), July 13, 2009

I guess there are people who think that every African-American student is displacing a white student and every employed African-American is taking a white person's job. Very sad.

From the conclusion:

Although our data do not speak directly to the mechanisms underlying Whites’ view of racism as a zero-sum game, it is likely that this belief has both practical and symbolic components. On the practical side, affirmative action policies designed to increase minority representation may focus Whites’ attention on the impact of quota-like procedures on their own access to education and employment, in effect threatening their resources (Haley & Sidanius, 2006). On the symbolic side, Whites may fear that minorities’ imposition of their cultural values represent an attack on White cultural values and norms, as evidenced by Whites’ resentment of norms of political correctness (Norton, Sommers, Apfelbaum, Pura, & Ariely, 2006) and the belief of many Whites in a ‘‘War on Christmas’’ (Gibson, 2005). In sum, our findings situate specific claims of persecution by White Americans in a broader belief in a new, generalized anti-White bias. That Whites now believe that anti-White bias is more prevalent than anti-Black bias has clear implications for public policy debates and behavioral science research in the years to come.

You can get a pdf of the report here: http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/sommerslab/documents/raceInterNortonSommers2011.pdf
It's a quick read.

[M0rpheus]

8. I meant to include that link, thanks for adding it. n/t

[bettyellen]

15. great link- thanks. "resentment of norms of poliical correctness" wowsa, yes.

[Jamaal510]

10. To these people

who think they experience more racism than us, they obviously have the mindset of the grass being greener on the other side. Just like the Republican Party thinks that poor people have it so easy, these respondents somehow believe that it is so much easier to be Black now.

[JustAnotherGen]

11. Bumping this in case

Prosense sees it! Explains Rand Paul to a T - and what's he up.

[JustAnotherGen]

12. This is a kick!

[AAO]

13. They might want to give them an IQ test at the same time. Or at least count their real teeth.

[MrScorpio]

14. Doing my part in GD...

Although the threads in question are getting hammered without me.

[freshwest]

16. 'Zero sum game' is a meme from Rush for over 20 years. They're repeating it. n/t