Friday, September 09, 2016

Does ignorance or familiarity breed contempt?

Does ignorance or familiarity breed racism against blacks?

To answer this question, I correlated how cool a white person feels towards blacks with the percent of the population in their region that is black (General Social Survey data). The correlation across nine census divisions is .48--a strongly positive correlation.

In other words, whites who live in areas with more blacks--an indication that one has had more actual experience with blacks--tend to feel cooler toward them.

The data suggests that familiarity breeds contempt, not affection. 

 

1 comment:

  1. Wow. Just now saw you were back. Welcome!

    ReplyDelete

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