"Science" Report from The Washington Post: Conservative Voters Are Racists

News Busters ^ | January 30, 2006 | Tim Graham

[stm]

On the Monday "Science" page of the Washington Post, reporter Shankar Vedantam offers the liberal Post readership some comforting news: studies show conservative voters are motivated by racism. That's not in the first paragraph. It sneaks in about halfway through the article, and explains the headline "Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases."

[T]hat study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.

"What automatic biases reveal is that while we have the feeling we are living up to our values, that feeling may not be right," said University of Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek, who helped conduct the race analysis. "We are not aware of everything that causes our behavior, even things in our own lives."

The Post can claim, hey, we at least let a spokesman for the RNC, Brian Jones, point out the scientists are Democrats.

He also questioned whether the researchers themselves had implicit biases -- against Republicans -- noting that Nosek and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji had given campaign contributions to Democrats.

"There are a lot of factors that go into political affiliation, and snap determinations may be interesting for an academic study, but the real-world application seems somewhat murky," Jones said.

But they end by quoting an apparently nonpartisan expert, Jon Krosnick of Stanford, who concludes that many studies prove the conservatives-are-racist thesis:

"If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial," he said. "We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, 'This takes me aback,' they are ignoring a huge volume of research."

Vedantam also publicized the same scientists -- and the same RNC spokesman -- in a Washington Post Magazine cover story a year ago. He did an online chat on that here.

[stm]

I had to also put this under humor, it's that laughable. The only kind of "science" this is indicative of is the kind Tom Cruise affiliates himself with now.

[xcamel]

Necrotizing Encephalitis (their fat brains are rotting)

[Horatio Gates]

Gee will KKK kleagle Senator Byrd be switching partys when he hears about this?

[CheyennePress]

Wasn't there some study done at --imagine this-- UC-Berkeley that basically said conservatives were small-minded racists who were only capable of seeing the world in black-and-white?

I guess if you let a liberal define what racism is, you might find some truth in this. I, for one, don't stick my head in the sand about a number of problems in the black community that they are going to have to fix before they'll ever begin to pull even with other ethnic groups in this country (e.g. childbirth out-of-wedlock, fatherless homes, emphasis on education, time spent working on schoolwork). And at this point, I place 75-85% of the blame on the individuals who fail in this respect.

Then again, I give 125% of the respect to those who pull themselves out less desireable circumstances and do well for themselves. Am I racist? Ha! According to a liberal, probably.

[MJRitter]

In my experience it as almost always been the exact opposite. Conservatives don't care what color someone's skin is, all they care about is that they work hard and don't violate anyone's rights.

It seems it's always the liberals talking about how they have black friends too, and things like "Not that there's anything wrong with that".

It also seems that the left is OK with minorities as long as they know their place, and don't try to think for themselves.

[stm]

The libs would assert.....well they're bad apples in every bunch and he's the exception not the rule. Oh yeah and David Duke too....

[dhs12345]

Like to think that even moderate liberals think this is nuts.

The only racists in my family is....... drum roll please ...... **a Democrat** And he is the worst kind.

[stm]

If they are able to think for themselves, then they see what idiots the libs and the poverty pimps really are.

[FormerACLUmember]

Yeah, REAL "scientific."

I can't wait until the Washington Compost goes out of existence.

[FormerACLUmember]

The only real racist political party in the US is the democrat party: The Party of Slavery. The democrats have been running a slave plantation oppressing blacks for 180 years.

It was, and is, the Republican Party that was founded for the specific purpose of liberating African Americans from the democrat party. And we Republicans fought a Civil War against teh democrats to prove it.

Questions:

Which party has a KKK officer as a US Senator?

Which party passed the 1965 Civil rights Act?

[stylin19a]

so, how did did J.C Watts ever get elected ?

[muawiyah]

When you get down to description of the study done by Nosek and Banaji, you find the key phrase that cuts to the heart of the study is where they report that they "....... culled self-acknowledged views about blacks from nearly 130,000 whites, who volunteered online to participate in a widely used test of racial bias....

Basically, it's NOT a scientifically conducted survey.

The Post writer, Shankar Vedantam, isn't terribly trustworthy when it comes to this kind of story anyway. In fact, I'd have to say he's hopelessly biased: SEE: http://www.vedantam.com/awards.html

It's that 2002-2003 Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism

that kind of sticks out.

This is like going to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to catch up on what the Pope really meant with his latest encyclical.

[dhs12345]

And which party's Presidential campaign promise was to capitulate with the South to end the Civil War. Leaving the slaves to their masters.

Sound familiar? Iraq?

[Centurion2000]

bump

[gotribe]

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[Sangey]

Attempt at humor follows:

Thanks to the Washington Post now I understand it all so much better.
Conservative voters hate all non-white non-Christians.
Ok got it.

Gee, now I can hate myself!

Buddha Bless the USA

[notbuyingit2]

Check out Michelle Malkin's response here: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004410.htm showing political contributions of the authors of this study.

[I still care]

"conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did."

Maybe the truth here is that liberals don't admit their biases to themselves? I mean, I never met a liberal that didn't love black people - as long as they were poor, uneducated, and on the Democratic plantation.

Let one get educated and pull herself up in the world with real verve like Condi and suddenly they are filth.

[speekinout]

LIberals get themselves all twisted in conflicting stereotypes. Conservatives are supposed to be racially biased, but they're also greedy business owners. A greedy business owner would hire someone purple if that meant they would get more money.

The real problem is that Conservatives don't do social engineering in the abstract. They'll help someone succeed, but they're not much interested in manipulating statistics just for the sake of looking good.

[stylin19a]

The analysis found that substantial majorities of Americans, liberals and conservatives, found it more difficult to associate black faces with positive concepts than white faces -- evidence of implicit bias. But districts that registered higher levels of bias systematically produced more votes for Bush.

Did any of those districts vote for x42i in 1992 & 1996 ? ( you know the answer )

If 70% of the population is white, wouldn't a white face more than likely elicit a more positive response from that population than someone who is from 11% of the population ?

sorry boys, nice try....no cigar.