Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Chinese Americans like the death penalty--blacks do not: According to the General Social Survey, almost 9 out of 10 Americans of Chinese ancestry favor the capital punishment. A clear majority in all ethnic groups feel the same way, except for blacks and West Indians:

1. Chinese 86.5%
2. Rumanians 82.6
3. Yugoslavs 81.2
4. Czechs 81.1
5. Greeks 80.8
6. Hungarians 80.6
7. Germans 79.8
8. Poles 79.4
8. English/Wales 79.4
10. Scots 79.7
11. French Canadians 79.2
12. Italians 78.3
13. Netherlands 77.3
14. Swedes 76.8
15. French 76.1
16. Belgians 76.0
17. Austrians 75.9
18. Danes 75.8
19. Irish 75.0
20. Japanese 74.4

U.S. average 73.6

21. Arabic 73.2
22. Swiss 72.9
22. Lithuanians 72.9
24. Norwegians 72.8
25. American Indians 71.9
25. Mexicans 71.9
27. Jews 71.7
28. Russians 70.8
29. Finns 70.7
30. India 70.4
31. Spain 69.6
32. Portugal 69.1
33. Filipinos 65.1
34. Puerto Ricans 60.5
35. Blacks 49.2
36. West Indians 47.8

Looking for patterns, Eastern Europeans are generally pro-death penalty, while poor minority groups are at the bottom of the list. We saw in the previous post that these groups are most willing to keep pot illegal, suggesting as Agnostic wrote, that these groups are more authoritarian. A dislike for capital punishment may reflect the view that it is imposed in a racially biased way. (It is not: the disproportionate number of minorities on death row is due to high rates of robbery-murders committed by these groups--the type of murder that qualifies as a capital crime). It is interesting that Arabs are average. I am getting the impression from GSS data that Arabs in America are surprisingly assimilated.

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:09 AM

    Most of the Arabs are Lebanese/Syrian Christian and they have been in America for a while so they've had a pretty long time to assimilate. Also, Leb/Syrian Christians are white, or if you disagree, they atleast pass as white so it's much easier for them to assimilate than a brown Yemeni Muslim.

    Although Muslims are not assimilated to the same extent as Arab Christians, the ones in America are probably the most assimilated Muslims in the diaspora. Unfortunately, that doesn't count for much because you never know when the 2nd or 3rd generation offspring will have a religious awakening and support radical Muslim groups or commit terrorism. As the case in Canada showed, affluence is not a good indicator of assimilation.

    Also, I wonder if Armenians are counted as "Arabs". I know they are not Arabs, but they are Mideastern and there is a signficant minority of Armenians in Syria/Lebanon. Armenians are of course overwhelmingly Christian.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous5:55 PM

    That explains why the arab fertility rate in the US was so low in a previous post. Anyone know what the ratio of Chistian to Muslim arabs is in the US?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous: Close to 70% of Arabs are Christians, and 15% are Muslim.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous6:42 PM

    Ralph Nader is an Arab, and he didn't run as a minority candidate. I think Steve Jobs is also an arab

    The first to waves of arab immigrants were overwhelmingly christian. Most of the current Arab immigrants are muslim.

    ReplyDelete
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