4 ms·

Americans misperceive racial economic equality

16 points by MaysonL 8y ago

oblib 8y ago
This seems to reflect my personal experiences here in SW Missouri. I live in a rural, very white, area and most all my neighbors simply do not believe there is any such thing as racial economic inequality and I've not had much success in relating how things are different in bigger cites and "ghettos".
clircle 8y ago
PNAS is not a well regarded journal by some people https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2017/10/04/breaking-pnas-changes-slogan/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2017/10/04/breaking-p...
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Perhaps, but you didn't read your own link if you think it supports that claim, since it basically says “PNAS marketing material implied they never made bad publication calls, and when I pointed that out to they fixed it, and, just to be clear, they are a great journal.”
DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
I have some misgivings about their reasoning after reading the first section ("Significance") of the article. (Apologies if I just didn't read far enough.) > Race-based economic inequality is both a defining and persistent feature of the United States that is at odds with national narratives regarding progress toward racial equality. Perhaps I'm reading too much into their phrasing, but saying that inequality is "race-based" sounds like a claim regarding causality. If so, I wonder if they're overreaching and should have limited their claims to correlation. > ... Notably, White Americans generated more accurate estimates of Black–White equality when asked to consider the persistence of race-based discrimination in American society. I could imagine many primer statements that potentially improve the accuracy of the estimates people come up with. But that alone would not show those primer statements to be true. I hope the paper's authors and readers avoid that logical trap.
- mikeash 8y ago
  When two things are correlated, there are four possibilities: A causes B, B causes A, A and B are both caused by some third factor C, or they are correlated by random chance. It is unlikely that economic inequality causes race, or that some third factor causes both economic inequality and race. The odds of race and economic situations being correlated by random chance are vanishingly small. The numbers involved are so big that there’s just no way, it would be like flipping a fair coin a million times and getting 700,000 heads. That leaves race causing economic inequality, probably by way of intermediate factors like oppression caused by race.
  - DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
    > When two things are correlated, there are four possibilities: A causes B, B causes A, A and B are both caused by some third factor C, or they are correlated by random chance. Kudos for breaking the problem down into a handful of mutually exclusive categories that we can discuss. That's really helpful. > That leaves race causing economic inequality, probably by way of intermediate factors like oppression caused by Notice your use of the word "probably". I might be mistaken, but I think that's smuggling in the very set of assumptions I was questioning in the first place.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      You suggested that race might not be the cause of economic equality correlated with race. I’m saying that race causing economic inequality is the only reasonable explanation for the facts. Whether it’s because race directly causes inequality or because race causes other stuff which then causes inequality doesn’t matter. It’s a causal relationship either way.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > It is unlikely that economic inequality cause race I wouldn't rule it out entirely for individuals where social pressure wouldn't react strongly against it (those of ambiguous appearance without a clear single identity imposed on uprearing); racial identity in those cases is probably shaped in part by experience of which economic status is a component. But that's, if it exists, a marginal effect around the edges.
bellerose 8y ago
The psychological impact one may have, from knowing their own ancestors were once slaves and so abused by being a different race. Must play a part in the inequality. I’ve never asked someone how it may bring paranoia or anxiety but it probably helps anger a person in situations of less certainty of being wronged by negligence vs malice. It must mentally hinder a person. People were intelligent in history and even during slavery. So it must make reality questionable. Usually this bounces in my head a lot. I find the world really sad thinking about it.
- spraak 8y ago
  I'm white and my wife is black, and she's said and confirmed this with me, saying she's surprised how I will handle certain situations.
protomyth 8y ago
Title of study doesn't correspond to actual study's sample: "sampling White and Black Americans from the top and bottom of the national income distribution" which hardly qualifies as the more general "Americans". I am a little sick of these studies with broad titles to get quoted and actual samples that are not as representative.

16 points by MaysonL 8y ago

This seems to reflect my personal experiences here in SW Missouri. I live in a rural, very white, area and most all my neighbors simply do not believe there is any such thing as racial economic inequality and I've not had much success in relating how things are different in bigger cites and "ghettos".

clircle 8y ago

PNAS is not a well regarded journal by some people https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2017/10/04/breaking-pnas-changes-slogan/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2017/10/04/breaking-p...

dragonwriter 8y ago
Perhaps, but you didn't read your own link if you think it supports that claim, since it basically says “PNAS marketing material implied they never made bad publication calls, and when I pointed that out to they fixed it, and, just to be clear, they are a great journal.”

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago

I have some misgivings about their reasoning after reading the first section ("Significance") of the article. (Apologies if I just didn't read far enough.) > Race-based economic inequality is both a defining and persistent feature of the United States that is at odds with national narratives regarding progress toward racial equality. Perhaps I'm reading too much into their phrasing, but saying that inequality is "race-based" sounds like a claim regarding causality. If so, I wonder if they're overreaching and should have limited their claims to correlation. > ... Notably, White Americans generated more accurate estimates of Black–White equality when asked to consider the persistence of race-based discrimination in American society. I could imagine many primer statements that potentially improve the accuracy of the estimates people come up with. But that alone would not show those primer statements to be true. I hope the paper's authors and readers avoid that logical trap.

mikeash 8y ago
When two things are correlated, there are four possibilities: A causes B, B causes A, A and B are both caused by some third factor C, or they are correlated by random chance. It is unlikely that economic inequality causes race, or that some third factor causes both economic inequality and race. The odds of race and economic situations being correlated by random chance are vanishingly small. The numbers involved are so big that there’s just no way, it would be like flipping a fair coin a million times and getting 700,000 heads. That leaves race causing economic inequality, probably by way of intermediate factors like oppression caused by race.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  > When two things are correlated, there are four possibilities: A causes B, B causes A, A and B are both caused by some third factor C, or they are correlated by random chance. Kudos for breaking the problem down into a handful of mutually exclusive categories that we can discuss. That's really helpful. > That leaves race causing economic inequality, probably by way of intermediate factors like oppression caused by Notice your use of the word "probably". I might be mistaken, but I think that's smuggling in the very set of assumptions I was questioning in the first place.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    You suggested that race might not be the cause of economic equality correlated with race. I’m saying that race causing economic inequality is the only reasonable explanation for the facts. Whether it’s because race directly causes inequality or because race causes other stuff which then causes inequality doesn’t matter. It’s a causal relationship either way.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > It is unlikely that economic inequality cause race I wouldn't rule it out entirely for individuals where social pressure wouldn't react strongly against it (those of ambiguous appearance without a clear single identity imposed on uprearing); racial identity in those cases is probably shaped in part by experience of which economic status is a component. But that's, if it exists, a marginal effect around the edges.

bellerose 8y ago

The psychological impact one may have, from knowing their own ancestors were once slaves and so abused by being a different race. Must play a part in the inequality. I’ve never asked someone how it may bring paranoia or anxiety but it probably helps anger a person in situations of less certainty of being wronged by negligence vs malice. It must mentally hinder a person. People were intelligent in history and even during slavery. So it must make reality questionable. Usually this bounces in my head a lot. I find the world really sad thinking about it.

spraak 8y ago
I'm white and my wife is black, and she's said and confirmed this with me, saying she's surprised how I will handle certain situations.

protomyth 8y ago

Title of study doesn't correspond to actual study's sample: "sampling White and Black Americans from the top and bottom of the national income distribution" which hardly qualifies as the more general "Americans". I am a little sick of these studies with broad titles to get quoted and actual samples that are not as representative.