An article in the Washington Post today is making the rounds among liberal pundits. The article reports on a study that was done to uncover racial biases among voters based on political party. It’s assertion (at least as it is being floated down the digital river) is that republicans in this country are measurably more racist than american democrats. Huh?
I included some excerpts from the article below (in italics) and my response to them – because this was just too easy to rebutt.
That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.
That wouldn’t be perchance, because we are the party opposed to racial profiling aka affirmative action, would it? Maybe it is because the Democratic party has used faces like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to move forth it’s agenda. When most republicans think in terms of voting blocs, it is not because republicans are homogeneous but becasue the FEW select causes that the DNC rallies around are special interest causes – the party that republicans vote against has created the public persona of a multi-ethnic, feminist, peace at all costs, homosexual as its poster child. I am sure that biases against homosexuals would run much stronger in republicans as well as biases against some other American minorities. Not because replicans are any more hateful than their liberal counterparts, but because liberal, and to a degree, even moderate democrats, have accepted these groups as allies in the war against conservative America. Of course, you are much more tolerant of the players on your own team. I don’t say this to suggest that all blacks are democrats, all gays are liberals or even that all feminists are in that party. I am saying that the DNC has done a very good job of creating an us vs. them mentality in its marketing of liberal ideologies and it has placed these demographic groups squarely in the crosshairs of the ad campaign. They (the DNC) have put a black face on their party.
The analysis found that substantial majorities of Americans, liberals and conservatives, found it more difficult to associate black faces with positive concepts than white faces — evidence of implicit bias. But districts that registered higher levels of bias systematically produced more votes for Bush.
Another misleading and not at all causal relationship. Keep in mind that most “red states” outside of the south have a very small population of African-Americans. Biases are bound to be more common in communities where the only understanding you have of black folks is Chris Rock’s sitcom or reruns of “What’s Happening”. Assuming a link between racism and republican voters in this case is misinformed at best and misleading at worst. It ignores the true causal relationship which is exposure. Certainly, there is another reason voters in Idaho may harbor some racist feelings that isn’t related to supporting President Bush! There are whole counties, school districts that gave Bush virtually 100% of the vote who don’t even have a numerically mentionable black citizenry. There is no way you can eliminate the lack of personal interaction with blacks as a major source of any bias they register. These same cities, towns, counties and states may be more rural, also an indicator that they lean toward more conservative social and moral views linking them more appropriately with a party that holds pro-life tenets and opposes gay marriages. They are more likely to own guns and to prefer sending their children to a public school where their children are allowed to repeat the pledge of allegiance. These values have nothing to do with racism.
Vincent Hutchings, a political scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said the results matched his own findings in a study he conducted ahead of the 2000 presidential election: Volunteers shown visual images of blacks in contexts that implied they were getting welfare benefits were far more receptive to Republican political ads decrying government waste than volunteers shown ads with the same message but without images of black people.
For starters, any ad with images is exponentially more powerful than a ad without. this is why 30 second television commercials aren’t shown in text format.
Also this could very well because the images are easily correlated to the recognizable images on the nightly news. By percentage, there are more African-Americans on the welfare rolls. The congregation of this demographic in run down government houses populated by crack dealing gangsters and prostituing junkies is an exaggerated image played over in television and movies day after day after day. Hollywood uses that image as a backdrop (you’d think African-Americans would be more offended!) for more crime shows than I can name and, that fact stated, there is an undeniable emotional reaction to the loaded visual stimulation of black americans living a tax payer funded life.
There are ideological reasons, as well, that republicans react with more feeling to such media depictions. Unlike, the democrat’s philosophy (everyone is a victim) which embraces the caretaking mentality of condescending paternity, republicans espouse the view that each human, regardless of color or gender is responsible for his own life and choices. They view self-reliance as an attainable ideal worth aspiring to and the “american dream” as merit based achievement instead of a government leveled playing field.
This ill ill-conceived study, as all studies and experiments do, began with a hypothesis. Somewhere in a university professor’s office or perhaps, between puffs on his pipe in his own living room, an academic came up with the idea that anti-black sentiment could be linked to the republican party. As a lifetime conservative who, admittedly has some biases but amazingly few against black americans, I’m wondering, who’s the real racist, that academic or me?
