Discussion about this post

User's avatar
RobinHanson's avatar

Yes that is a plausible interpretation, under one common definition of "racist".

Expand full comment
Rafal Smigrodzki's avatar

You have largely replicated the findings from GSS which asked black and whites the question about centrality of own race to personal identity. GSS found a similar ratio, although the absolute numbers were lower (44% and 9% if I remember correctly).

Frankly, I think that this question is a polite way of asking if one is a racist. Obviously, if you see your race as a central feature of your identity, it means you see persons of same race as meaningfully closer to self while distancing your self from persons of other races. Distance from self is a good proxy for the willingness to inflict harm, in this case race-based harm. Of course the raw numbers from a poll are not likely to be useful in assessing the absolute numbers of potentially violent racists in the polled groups but they provide a good idea about the relative numbers of racists.

Expand full comment
8 more comments...

No posts