A recent headline claimed that “Whites Believe They Are Victims of Racism More Often Than Blacks” at http://now.tufts.edu/news-releases/whites-believe-they-are-victims-racism-more-o). I didn’t bother to read the study itself since so many published studies are simply wrong, but the article states that the study authors “asked a nation-wide sample of 208 blacks and 209 whites to indicate the extent to which they felt blacks and whites were the targets of discrimination in each decade from the 1950s to the 2000s. A scale of 1 to 10 was used, with 1 being ‘not at all’ and 10 being ‘very much.’”
Well, just look at the methodology, and you can see why the evaluation of racism in the 2000s, after first priming subjects to think of racism in the 1950s, will seem better for blacks and worse for whites. So the study doesn’t tell us what people really think. What interests me, though, are other ways that context can affect our thinking about racism.
If you are white and expect that you will not be put into your skin in a way that makes you self-conscious, because it rarely happens to you, then any instance of it happening to you will stand out, and you may overestimate the degree of racism in your life. Also, when the news of the day is that colleges discriminate against white applicants and the 1965 Voting Rights Act is unconstitutionally forceful in protecting the rights of black voters (these are upcoming Supreme Court cases), then the availability heuristic—we overemphasize whatever comes to mind—is likely to make you think that there is a lot of anti-white racism.
If you are black and have been forewarned by your family about the ubiquity of racism in America, then you are likely to be struck by the many instances of not encountering it, and you are likely to underestimate the anti-black racism in America. Also, even though your friends tell each other stories of racism, many mainstream news and entertainment outlets don’t. (“’Man bites dog’ is news.”)
My own view is that whites and blacks in America have about the same number of racist moments, but that the cost for blacks is much greater. Most people self-select for situations where they are not constantly put in their skin, either by looking for (or staying stuck in) social networks and neighborhoods and jobs where they are not stigmatized, or by making places more comfortable with them just by being there and behaving well. So most people lead lives that do not produce racist encounters. But the places that blacks have to avoid to avoid racism are more potentially valuable to them than are the places to whites that whites avoid to avoid racism. This is partly because white-oriented places are richer and are paths to wealth, but it is also because there are just a lot more white-oriented places in America than black-oriented or neutral places. In that sentence, I mean by “white-oriented” a place where you don’t stand out if you’re white, but you do stand out if you’re black. The odds of finding the best college, job, friends, romantic partner, or entertainment for yourself are greater if there are more places you can look.
In a completely racist marital market, for example, with 10% blacks and 90% whites (I’m oversimplifying) in a city of 200,000 people, a young black woman might find that of the 10,000 black men in the city, a thousand of them are in her age bracket and 500 of them are single. A young white woman is looking at 4500 prospects. The white woman is 9 times more likely than the black woman to find a man who matches her desired profile of traits. If they’re lesbians, they’re even worse off. If race is not a barrier, both straight women are looking at 5000 prospects. In this example, the straight black woman still gets married but only because the black man she marries also has to settle. My point is that just by being the majority, financial opportunities aside, anti-black racism is more costly than anti-white racism when cost involves happiness.
Michael Karson, Ph.D. 