12/07/2023

New Research Undercuts Republican Views of Racism

Republicans are more likely to say White people experience racism than Black people

The emergence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement almost a decade ago was predicated on the killing of Black people at the hands of law enforcement. In short order, though, that concern spurred a broader consideration of the ways in which racial discrimination or disadvantage is embedded in the systems that undergird American society, including law enforcement.

There were obvious effects. One was that people became much more likely to point to discrimination as the central cause of economic differences between White and Black Americans. Another is that this shift occurred only among Democrats and independents; among Republicans, there was no change. Instead, the rhetoric from Republican leaders rejected the idea that there existed systemic racism in the country. Suggesting that it did was cast as unpatriotic and ahistoric.

BLM gained prominence at a moment when White Americans, particularly those on the right, were already nervous about their social status. Demographers were projecting that Whites would no longer be a majority within a few decades, and older generations of Americans who are more heavily White saw younger, more heavily non-White generations emerging that espoused different political views generally. Donald Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, near the outset of the BLM movement, and his supporters were more likely than other Americans to say that they believed White Americans were the targets of discrimination.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.