Media and academia are pushing a false narrative of America as a systemically racist nation that is unsupported by hard data and countered by the considerable evidence that society is more tolerant than ever, concludes a lengthy, scholarly analysis published by the Manhattan Institute.
"At a time when measures of racist attitudes and behavior have never been more positive, pessimism about racism and race relations has increased in America," writes Eric Kaufmann in his executive summary.
Eric Kaufmann (Manhattan Institute)
Kaufmann is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, in England. His scholarship focuses on cultural politics, and religious and national identity.
In the paper's foreword, Coleman Hughes, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research who is of African American and Puerto Rican descent, acknowledges that bigotry in America certainly exists.
"Yet the public perception of bigotry has surpassed the reality to such an extent that it has become a moral panic. White supremacy is said to be rampant. Black people should fear for their lives when going for a jog, one New York Times op-ed argued," writes Hughes.
Kaufmann contends the public's mistaken perception of how much racism exists in America today is driven in large part by ideas.
Concepts such as critical race theory and intersectionality once were confined to graduate seminars, he points out. Now they have seeped into corporate America and Silicon Valley. And in the past year in particular, since the George Floyd protests, they have become a feature of K–12 education.
He contends, citing his surveys, that "ideology, partisanship, social media, and education have inclined Americans to 'see' more bigotry and more racial prejudice than they previously did."
"This is true not only regarding the level of racism in society but even of their personal experiences."
His survey findings "suggest that an important part of the reported experience of racism is ideologically malleable."
Coleman Hughes (Manhattan Institute)
"Reports of increased levels of racism during the Trump era, for example, likely reflect perception rather than reality — just as people have almost always reported rising violent crime when it has been declining during most of the past 25 years," he writes.
"In addition, people who say that they are sad or anxious at least half the time, whether white or black, are about twice as likely as others to say that they have experienced racism and discrimination."
Kaufmann says that with that development "has come a perception that bigotry is rampant, but the data tell a different story, indicating there has never been less racism than there is now."
He argues the paradox is best explained by changes in perceptions of racism rather than an increase in the frequency of racist incidents.
"None of this means that racism is an imaginary problem. However, efforts to reduce it should be based on strong empirical evidence and bias-free measures," he argues.
"The risks of overlooking racism are clear: injustice is permitted to persist and grow. Yet there are also clear dangers in overstating its presence. These go well beyond majority resentment and polarization."
He argues that a "media-generated narrative about systemic racism distorts people's perceptions of reality and may even damage African-Americans’ sense of control over their lives."
Some of his key findings:
- Eight in 10 African-American survey respondents believe that young black men are more likely to be shot to death by the police than to die in a traffic accident; one in 10 disagrees. Among a highly educated sample of liberal whites, more than six in 10 agreed. In reality, considerably more young African-American men die in car accidents than are shot to death by police.
- Ideology, not education, influences the extent to which people are incorrect on police shootings and traffic accidents.
- Black Trump voters are almost 30 points more likely to get the question right than black Biden voters.
- Conservative whites are almost 50 points more likely to get it right than liberal whites.
- African-Americans who strongly agree that white Republicans are racist are 40 points more likely to get the question wrong than those who strongly disagree that white Republicans are racist.
- Black Biden voters are twice as likely as black Trump voters to say that they personally experienced more racism under Trump than under Obama. Black Trump voters reported a consistent level of racism under both administrations. Black respondents who strongly agree that white Republicans are racist are 20–30 points more likely to say that they experience various personal forms of racism than African-Americans who strongly disagree that white Republicans are racist.
- Reading a passage from critical race theory author Ta-Nehisi Coates results in a significant 15-point drop in black respondents' belief that they have control over their lives.
- A slight majority of African-Americans and whites overall felt that political correctness on race is demeaning to black people rather than necessary to protect them. Among blacks, the difference between liberals and conservatives was 3 points (51% of the liberals thought it was demeaning vs. 54% of the conservatives). Among whites, however, there was a nearly 20-point divide between liberals and conservatives (43% of the liberals thought it was demeaning vs. 62% of the conservatives).
- Liberal African-Americans with a college degree are nearly 30 points more likely to find a statement by a white person such as “I don’t notice people’s race” or “America is a colorblind society” offensive than African-Americans without degrees who identify as conservative. Among whites, the gap between liberals and conservatives is 50 points
Rebutting 'systemic police racism'
Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald has been a leader in researching the considerable empirical evidence rebutting the Black Lives Matter "systemic police racism" narrative.
At an online event last July, she presented the findings of numerous studies.
For example, a 2019 study published by the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America concluded there is no racial disparity in police shootings once violent crime is taken into account.
As WND reported, the authors retracted that study because Mac Donald had cited it verbatim in congressional testimony and in several articles. She said she received a personal email from the authors asking her to cease and desist from citing it, even though the authors stand by their findings.
As it turns out, however, the authors did not retract a 2018 article that reached the same conclusion, that violent crime, not race, determines police shootings. The researchers found blacks were 2.5 times more likely to be shot by police. But the authors recognized population isn't the proper benchmark, it's crime.
When you compare fatal police shootings to homicides and arrests, Mac Donald pointed out, the likelihood of being shot, in the authors' words, "flips completely."
Whites are about three times more likely to be fatally shot than blacks, once their homicide rates are taken into account, the authors found.
Others have reached the same conclusion, she noted, including Harvard economist Roland Fryer.
Officers in the 10 large cities and counties were more likely to shoot a suspect without first being attacked if the suspect was white than if the suspect was black, Fryer found.
In 2015, under President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, a Justice Department analysis of the Philadelphia Police Department found white police officers were less likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot unarmed black suspects.
In 2016, the Washington Post reported a Washington State University study finding that police officers are three times less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed white suspects.
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