# Study says Republican voters more likely to be racist **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 30, 2006, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254 "2006-01-30T20:33:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/1 "2006-01-30T20:33:29Z")
The story is [here](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/29/AR2006012900642_pf.html): > [@](#): > > For their study, Nosek, Banaji and social psychologist Erik Thompson culled self-acknowledged views about blacks from nearly 130,000 whites, who volunteered online to participate in a widely used test of racial bias that measures the speed of people’s associations between black or white faces and positive or negative words. The researchers examined correlations between explicit and implicit attitudes and voting behavior in all 435 congressional districts. > > 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. > > “Obviously, such research does not speak at all to the question of the prejudice level of the president,” said Banaji, “but it does show that George W. Bush is appealing as a leader to those Americans who harbor greater anti-black prejudice.” This agrees with a lot of my impressions of many Republican voters in this area. Though I was a Republican voter not long ago, the tendency toward racism that I thought I saw was always a sore point with me. Let’s say that the study is true. What does it mean for Republicans? Is it fair if I then believe they are more likely to be a racist? Does it bother you if your fellow Republicans are racist/more racist than Democrats? Is there something inherent in Republicanism that appeals to racists? Or, if you don’t believe the study, can you explain why not? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/2 "2006-01-30T20:40:11Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > For their study, Nosek, Banaji and social psychologist Erik Thompson culled self-acknowledged views about blacks from nearly 130,000 whites, who volunteered online to participate in a widely used test of racial bias Whoa. “Volunteered online”? Isn’t it usually considered a potential source of bias to have your survey sample self-selected? It certainly seems plausible to me that Republican voters would be more likely than Democratic voters to be racist, simply as a legacy of the GOP’s old “Southern strategy”. However, I’d want some statistical expert to take a good look at the survey methodology before I believed that this study proved anything about the issue. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/3 "2006-01-30T20:49:49Z")
Aside from the flawed approach of online polling, It’s pretty hazy that it’s causal. White males are more likely to be Republican. White males are more likely to be racist than black females. Are the opinions of one subset unfairly skewing the results? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/4 "2006-01-30T20:53:33Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Or, if you don’t believe the study, can you explain why not? Other than the objection \*\*kimstu \*\*raised, it sounds like the study was not geared towards alinging specific people with specific political parties, but rather tying the response of each person to the voting district he or she belonged to. Also, how do they verify that all 130,000 respondents are white? I would expect you’d find a strong correlation between the race of the person and their reaction to racial cues given them. And, considering 90% of all Black voters tend to vote Democratic in the presidential election, that would skew things as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more racists who vote Republican than Democratic. Does that make the Republican party racist? I’d also suppose that more people who self-identify as socialists vote for the Demcratic party. Does that make the Democratic party socialist? Personally, I make up my mind about whom to vote for based on policies, not on who also votes for that person. For example, I strongly oppose Afirmative Action policies that give preferences to racial minorities, simply because I think the government should not classify people by race. If I were running for public office, I might garner the support of racists. But that doesn’t make me racist, nor does it demonstrate that my policy preference is motivated by racism. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/5 "2006-01-30T20:55:32Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Let’s say that the study is true. What does it mean for Republicans? It means Condi Rice can forget about getting the Pub presidential nomination in 2008. > [@jsgoddess](#): > > Is there something inherent in Republicanism that appeals to racists? Not inherent, merely a happy (if you can call it that) coincidence. Republican ideology of self-reliance, minimal government, and hostility to welfare accords well with the white racist assumption that welfare exists to support non-working blacks at the expense of white taxpayers. ---
**Author:** ![AFAIKnow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a6a055/32.png) [@AFAIKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AFAIKnow)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/6 "2006-01-30T20:57:37Z")
> [@NurseCarmen](#): > > Aside from the flawed approach of online polling, It’s pretty hazy that it’s causal. White males are more likely to be Republican.\*\* White males are more likely to be racist than black females. \*\* Are the opinions of one subset unfairly skewing the results? (Bolding mine) I was wondering if there is any proof to this besides casual observance. Any study along the lines of tendency to be racist along the lines of race/sex? ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/7 "2006-01-30T21:00:40Z")
And years ago, we were treated to “scientific” studies which supposedly proved that children raised in day care actually did better than children raised by their families. This, amazingly enough, dovetailed perfectly with the prevailing feminist ideology of the time. What is more, liberals have a long and sordid history of screaming “Racism!” at anybody who questions their ideology, so it wouldn’t be at all surprising if someone in a sociology department somewhere cooked up a “scientific” study supposedly proving that the Republican party is founded on (gasp!) _racism!_ You’ll forgive if I’m just a mite skeptical. Sociology is a field particularly rich in quackery, and I’m fairly certain this is just another example. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/8 "2006-01-30T21:02:51Z")
> [@NurseCarmen](#): > > White males are more likely to be racist than black females. Er…why exactly? Are you basing this simply on the fact that there are more white males than black females or on something else? As to the OP pretty much what John Mace said. My one caviot would be that, in my own experience there are levels of ‘racism’ that people fall into. More sophisticated people have more subtle streaks of racism, while less sophisticated folks tend to wear their racism more on their sleeves. Depending on exactly how they were measuring ‘racism’ could potentially skew the results either toward folks who wear their racism on their sleeves or folks who have a more subtle and insidious form of racism. All in all it sounds like merely a way of playing with the numbers and cherry picking the data in order to be able to say ‘Republicans are racists!’. YMMV and all that. -XT ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/9 "2006-01-30T21:04:56Z")
And did it occur to these researchers that a study of anti-white racism among white liberals and radicals in the Democratic party might also be interesting? It didn’t? Gee, I wonder why not? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/10 "2006-01-30T21:13:26Z")
Perhaps we could at least wait until the study is published before accusing the authors of bias and fraud. It might not kill us. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/11 "2006-01-30T21:24:53Z")
> [@NurseCarmen](#): > > White males are more likely to be racist than black females. This is a pretty racist and sexist assumption in itself. My congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney, is pretty good evidence that there is no shortage of racist sentiment among black women. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/12 "2006-01-30T21:31:04Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > And did it occur to these researchers that a study of anti-white racism among white liberals and radicals in the Democratic party might also be interesting? It didn’t? Gee, I wonder why not? Because it doesn’t fucking exist. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/13 "2006-01-30T21:32:11Z")
Related to this debate is a recent [review](http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=10835) of new books on shifting political affiliations in the American South: > [@](#): > > The White House Looks South by the respected historian (and adopted Southerner) William E. Leuchtenburg […] The End of Southern Exceptionalism by Byron E. Shafer and Richard Johnston […] Kevin M. Kruse illuminates the story at ground level. In White Flight, a study of white resistance to desegregation in Atlanta […] > > Each of these three books revolves around the same question: What broke the Democrats’ hold on a South once so solid that Roosevelt never lost a southern state in four presidential campaigns, and Republicans, still bearing the cross of the Civil War, failed to elect a single U.S. senator from the region from 1903 through 1961? > > Almost all versions of the disaffected South story focus on race. In this telling, the critical event sundering the South from the Democratic Party is the white backlash against the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts under Johnson in the 1960s (anticipated, to some extent, by the 1948 Dixiecrat revolt against Harry Truman’s first tentative steps toward civil rights). As Leuchtenburg recounts, Johnson famously lamented upon signing the Civil Rights Act that he had just “delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come.” […] > > Leuchtenburg’s verdict on the cause of the divorce seems the most balanced: Race played the dominant role in the critical period, but differences over taxes, spending, and the overall reach of government – sometimes intersecting with race, at other points operating independently – exacerbated the tension. > [@Lonesome Polecat](#): > > And did it occur to these researchers that a study of anti-white racism among white liberals and radicals in the Democratic party might also be interesting? It didn’t? Gee, I wonder why not? “Anti-white racism”? Among whites? “I hate myself and everything I stand for!” I kind of doubt that any socially dominant racial or ethnic group, whatever its political affiliation, really has a statistically significant level of racial prejudice **against itself**. > [@xtisme](#): > > Er…why exactly? Are you basing this simply on the fact that there are more white males than black females or on something else? I think the idea is that racism in individuals tends to conform to prejudices within the society as a whole. American society has long been much more prejudiced against blacks than against whites, so anti-black prejudice is easier to fall into, and more strongly reinforced by social stereotypes, than anti-white prejudice. > [@Lonesome Polecat](#): > > My congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney, is pretty good evidence that there is no shortage of racist sentiment among black women. Say what? One individual constitutes “pretty good evidence” about the sentiments of an entire group? ---
**Author:** ![Taran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Taran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taran)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/14 "2006-01-30T21:33:14Z")
Racist against black people, though? I bet that’s what she/he meant. On preview: **LonesomePolecat** , this one’s for you. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/15 "2006-01-30T21:35:11Z")
Re: the OP, I think it might be better stated to say the study (flawed as it is) suggests that racists are more likely to vote for Republicans than to say Republicans are more likely to be racist. ---
**Author:** ![AFAIKnow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a6a055/32.png) [@AFAIKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AFAIKnow)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/16 "2006-01-30T21:37:31Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Because it doesn’t fucking exist. So says **Diogenes**"I’m-an-independant-_dammit"_ **the Cynic** :rolleyes: Maybe you should stick to the religious debates. ---
**Author:** ![light\_strand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a6a055/32.png) [@light\_strand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/light_strand)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/17 "2006-01-30T21:39:59Z")
Correlation does not imply causation. Republicans don’t tend to be racist. Racists tend to be Republican. There could be an identical study on: “Democrats more likely to sympathize with terrorists”. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/18 "2006-01-30T21:41:13Z")
> [@AFAIKnow](#): > > So says Diogenes “I’m-an-independant-dammit” the Cynic To be fair, **AFAIKnow** , I think **DtC** is saying that anti-white racism doesn’t exist among whites, not necessarily that racism doesn’t exist among Democrats. Which I would tend to agree with, as I noted above. (At least, anti-white racism doesn’t exist among whites to any statistically significant extent.) ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/19 "2006-01-30T21:45:50Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > To be fair, **AFAIKnow** , I think **DtC** is saying that anti-white racism doesn’t exist among whites, not necessarily that racism doesn’t exist among Democrats. > > Which I would tend to agree with, as I noted above. (At least, anti-white racism doesn’t exist among whites to any statistically significant extent.) Well, if that’s the case, he really fucked up, because I was specifically talking about anti-white racism _among white liberals and radicals_, not among the general white population. And only a fool would deny that there’s a lot of anti-white racism on the left. ---
**Author:** ![AFAIKnow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a6a055/32.png) [@AFAIKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AFAIKnow)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254/20 "2006-01-30T21:52:52Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > To be fair, **AFAIKnow** , I think **DtC** is saying that anti-white racism doesn’t exist among whites, not necessarily that racism doesn’t exist among Democrats. > > Which I would tend to agree with, as I noted above. (At least, anti-white racism doesn’t exist among whites to any statistically significant extent.) That’s an unconditional statement which I don’t buy. I am not jumping on the “those damn liberal reasearchers” bandwagon. But I do think that there are \*plenty of white liberals who are racist towards “white men”. \*maybe not prevalent,but deffinately quantitative if someone wanted to do a study. 😉 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-republican-voters-more-likely-to-be-racist/342254.md?page=2)