Discriminations

Since I’ve waited a few days to discuss it, by now most of you are probably already familiar with the new AP/Yahoo poll on the role race is likely to play in the election. The gist of it, and the nature of most of the coverage it has received, is nicely captured by the Chicago Sun Times headline on this widely read Associated Press article by Ron Fournier and Trevor Thompson, “Bigoted white Dems could doom Obama's effort.” That article’s lede:

WASHINGTON -- Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them ‘‘lazy,’’ ‘‘violent’’ or responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 -- about 2.5 percentage points.

The survey itself can be found here, and a longer version of the Fournier/Thompson AP article containing a sidebar with a graphical representation of some of the survey’s highlights appears here. On this sidebar responses to questions about “words that describe blacks” are broken down to reflect the views of all whites, white Democrats, white Republicans, and white independents, although curiously that data is not in what was described as the complete results. Obviously the AP writers had access to data that, for some reaon, was not released. Those responses are fascinating, but they reveal, I believe, a number of flaws, or at least questionable assumptions, that characterize the easy “white bigot” conclusions that many commentators have drawn.

Some examples from the sidebar:

First, interestingly, on all the positive adjectives, white Democrats have a more favorable attitude toward blacks than white Republicans or Independents. For example, about 40% of white Dems regard blacks as “Friendly,” compared to about 31% of Republicans and only 25% of Independents. Similarly, about 25% of white Dems regard blacks as “Smart at School,” compared to about 20% of white Republicans and Independents. (Unreported is whether this means that 75% of white Dems do not regard blacks as “Smart at School,” etc., which I think is the logical implication.)

The negative attitudes, however, or rather attitudes about negative characteristics — Violent, Boastful, Complaining, Lazy — are more interesting, especially since they provide the media paydirt here (“white bigots” may rob election, etc.). About 12% of white Dems, for example, regard blacks as both lazy and irresponsible, compared with about 15% of white Republicans and Independents.

By far the most interesting negative attitude, at least to me, is “Complaining,” which all categories of whites regarded as the most negative of all their negative attitudes about blacks. About 22% of white Dems thought this term applied to blacks, compared to about 35% of white Republicans and Independents. This was the largest spread on all of the negatives. I think this “Complaining” button was what Rev. Wright pushed, and Michelle Obama re-enforced with her comments about America being a mean country that had made her proud only recently. I also believe that when whites regard blacks as “complaining,” what they are primarily responding to is the demand for special treatment, i.e., for racial preferences.

What makes this poll such a hot commodity right now is not simply the numbers of whites who have some negative attitudes about blacks (the positive attitudes aren’t newsworthy), but the pollsters’ claim that

[s]tatistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama’s support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice.

I don’t know what these “statistical models” are, and I wouldn’t know if they were persuasive even if did know what they are. But I do know that some of the poll’s underlying assumptions can be questioned. For example, the AP article notes that

[t]he pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats. President Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq war and a national sense of economic hard times cut against GOP candidates, as does the fact that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.

As John Hinderaker notes on PowerLine, however,

[o]thers would say that the question requiring investigation is why John McCain is locked in a close race with Barack Obama, when Obama has no discernible qualifications for the office and (as the survey shows) holds views well to the left of the electorate. Occam’s razor would suggest that the fact that 47 percent of respondents describe Obama as “inexperienced” accounts more readily for the tight race than the divinations of “racism” derived from the poll.

Some of the attitude questions in the poll, moreover, do not necessarily support the conclusions that the pollsters and most commentators have drawn from them. As Roger Clegg has observed (in an email to me, which I quote with permission):

what are we to make of this kind of sentence: “One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that ‘if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites.’”

I don’t think that agreeing with that statement makes one a bigot, and I don’t see how agreeing with it makes it harder to vote for the particular black guy who’s running for president.

Is the sentiment in that sentence — that too many African Americans are not availing themselves of the opportunities they now have — very far removed from what Bill Cosby has said? Similarly, associating black with “violent” makes Jesse Jackson a bigot, too, I suppose (recall his famous admission that he was relieved when he found that the teenagers walking behind him are white instead of black).

Recognizing that, in 2008 America, African Americans are, statisically speaking, more likely to be underachievers and violent isn’t the same thing as saying that they are hardwired to be so. Sheesh.

If 22% of blacks said whites would be better off if they worked harder, would that make them racist? In any event, Roger’s reference to “hardwired” raises the question of just what we (and here, for a change, I include pollsters and commentators) mean by “racist,” and ultimately by race itself. Is it necessarily racist, that is, to associate blacks with violence if blacks commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime? It certainly may be, if the violent behavior is thought to be genetic, or if it be thought that all blacks are violent. But is the association itself, in answer to a pollster, necessarily evidence of racism? I don’t think so, and, as Roger says, even if it is such an attitude would not necessarily mean the respondent would not vote for Obama.

I should add here that not everything in the poll or in the current reports of it are objectionable. It was conducted with the assistance of Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman, who has written widely and well about race and polling about race. (I do not say that simply because I’m a Stanford grad, nor do I know Sniderman. But see here for some of the works to which I refer.) And the AP article does contain some important cautions and qualifiers, such as the following:

Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren’t voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn’t vote for any Democrat for president — white, black or brown.

Not all whites are prejudiced. Indeed, more whites say good things about blacks than say bad things, the poll shows. And many whites who see blacks in a negative light are still willing or even eager to vote for Obama....

Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicates. More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to vote against him because of that.

In my view, however, it remains odd that the poll would find race a powerful explanation for why so many Democrats, but not Republicans, would vote against Obama.

Finally, returning to the “hardwired” issue and assumptions about the meaning of racism, we are constantly told that race is “socially constructed.” I think this is largely true (whatever it means exactly), but I also think this truth has some implications that are rarely recognized. Consider, again, the fact that by far the most negative characteristic attributed to blacks is “Complaining,” which is also the negative characteristic that most clearly flows from a position on public policy (demanding racial preferences). As I’ve pointed out several times, no one thinks of Colin Powell as “complaining” about things. As I pointed out here, first quoting the New Republic’s Peter Beinart and then criticizing him:

Despite the pervasive racism of the electorate Beinart remains an optimist, “because even racists can be wooed.”

Think about it this way [Beinart writes]: Many of the voters who right now won’t vote for Obama because he’s black would probably vote for Colin Powell even though he’s black. That’s because they don’t see Powell as a racial redistributionist, a guy who would favor his community at their expense.

What Beinart is really saying here is that Powell is not really black, because he’s not a “racial redistributionist.” It never seems to occur to Beinart that if voters will vote for black candidate P, who does not support racial redistribution, but will not vote for black candidate O, who does (or who they think does) support racial redistribution, the reason they don’t support O in greater numbers is not at all because they’re racist and he’s black but because they disagree with his position on an issue (actually, probably many issues) that are important to them.

When liberal academics, liberal commentators, liberal journalists, et. al. assert knowingly that race is “socially constructed,” what they mean is that race is not a biological fact but an arbitrary invention of, in our case, American society, something imposed on blacks by and for the benefit of whites. But by favoring racial preferences, i.e. “complaining” that the demand for official colorblindness is the new racism, perhaps blacks and white liberals like Beinart contribute more than they realize to the “social construction” of what we mean by race.