Is race a factor in opposition to health reform?

[RoyGBiv]

I stumbled across this while reading something else.

Is anyone aware of the study to which this article refers and how one might get their hands on a copy of findings or some sort of report? I did a quick search, but either I'm too tired to do it properly, or it's not out there.

According to a recent study by researchers from Stanford and the University of California at Irvine, negative views of the president do appear be correlated with racial bias. The problem with the Democracy Corps study, they say, is that it relied on its subjects to talk candidly about race. "People may fail to report the influence of race on their judgments," the researchers wrote, ". . . because they are unaware of it -- and might not acknowledge it even if they were aware of it."

To better measure people's "implicit" (or unconscious) prejudice, the California researchers asked those in the study to quickly sort stereotypically "black" and "white" words and names (Tyrone and Shaniqua vs. Brett and Jane) into positive and negative categories. They found that individuals displaying above-average levels of racial prejudice on this task were 42.5 percent less likely to have voted for Obama than those with average scores.

The researchers also found a negative correlation between racial prejudice and support for Obama's health-care reform effort. As a further test of this relationship, the researchers divided study participants into two groups and read both groups a health-care reform plan -- but one group was told that the policy was Obama's, while the other group was told that it was Bill Clinton's 1993 plan. Those subjects with higher levels of racial bias were more negative about the plan when it was attributed to Obama.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/11/AR2009121102711.html

[FrenchieCat]

1. Certainly in the realm of possibilities......

Interesting.

I'm gonna send this article to my daughter who is doing her PHD studies in psychology.
We talk politics often enough.

[Hekate]

2. Interesting. I had thought it would fall more along the lines that "welfare" vs. Medicare does...

One of the big reasons for the high social approval for Medicare and Social Security is that eventually nearly everyone gets something back from the system -- it's not relegated solely to "the poor", however you define them. If you believe that "the poor" ought to be "deserving" then it irks you no end to see any sign that they are not, because it's your tax money, dammit. Race does enter into it, because of the disproportionate representation of nonwhites among said poor.

Having said that, this article makes quite a bit of sense. Most of us, regardless of anything else, want and need healthcare reform or at the bare minimum, insurance reform. Why certain people would be ultra-suspicious of Obama's motives, as opposed to his performance, is a mystery -- until racial prejudice was factored in and surveyed. Very interesting.

Hekate

[elleng]

3. JUST WHAT REPUGS WANT!

[Number23]

4. Damning, but not surprising in the least.

Looks like you can find some of the report here - http://www.uci.edu/features/feature_obamarace_091116.php

With every single damn day, I become less convinced that this country deserves the pats on its back that it gave itself after Obama's election regarding race.

[DevonRex]

7. It's really embarrassing. While Britain hasn't elected a black man yet

I think the majority there are horrified at the racism they see here. Same for the other European countries. Sure, we did it. But the kooks have come out from under their rocks since then.

Add to that the number of yellow dog Dems who are still racist, but just couldn't vote for a puke no matter what. I posted about some I know below.

[RoyGBiv]

10. Interesting, thanks ...

For some reason I've got it in my head I need to see a fuller report of the study. I can't imagine it not being published electronically somewhere if news organizations are actually quoting from it now.

[Number23]

12. Yeah, it looks like the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology is keeping it under wraps

until it can publish it first. It will probably be available electronically after it's been nationally published.

[RoyGBiv]

16. I'm just confused ...

The "related links" led to Professor Knowles' faculty page, where he had a link to a PDF of the article, which is said to appear in the current issue of Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Well, the current issue is January 2010, and I'm sitting here looking at the index, and this article is nowhere to be seen, nor is it in the previous edition from November.

Perhaps by "current" they mean "upcoming" in March.

Hell, I dunno. Journals do weird stuff like this. But, thanks again for leading me in the right direction. At least I do have a copy of it now and have satisfied that obsession.

OnEdit: Fixed link

[RoyGBiv]

15. delete

wrong place

[NOLALady]

14. I really hate to say it but....

With every passing day, I become less convinced that this country deserves President Obama.

[Clio the Leo]

5. I think the anti-immigrant furor is evidence of this...

.... as was the white guy yelling at the black President accusing him of lying about protecting illegal immigrants while discussing the health care bill. ;)

[DevonRex]

6. Well no kidding. Although of course nobody can mention this.

I have a racist Dem father-in-law (and his wife). They're in their 80s so I think that explains it. Plus they're from NYC, where racism took on a whole new meaning. I'm from the South originally so I had no idea that everybody hated everybody else in NYC until fairly recent decades.

Anyway they ended up voting for Obama but it's not like they'll ever look upon him as favorably as they would have if he were white. I know this for a fact from the things they said during the primaries and even after they voted for him.

[rebel with a cause]

17. Yes, NYC has its own brand of racism and prejudice.

I love the place but you can't have a thin skin and live there. I went there as a young white woman who dressed like a mid-westerner (because I was one) and I was treated pretty good by most people. I married a Latino man and when I was with him I was treated differently by most people. I had a Latina child and again things changed in the way I was treated. But then my daughter had another type of prejudice against her and that was because she had a white mother she was not given the same consideration other Latino children were given. Some people in her father's family called her a gringa and resented her greatly although she looked more like a Latina than most of them.

I saw different groups go against each other in every way and found it not very different than it had been back in my racist hometown, except there were only white people living there.

I got so many compliments from people who told me that they had hated me because I was white and also had a bit of a southern accent. They said they had been mean to me but I had ignored their actions and remained nice to them and because of this they had ended up liking me. I didn't tell them that I was use to being treated that way so didn't know any better. ;)

Anyway, you soon learn to have a NYC attitude and life becomes easier because you could care less what other people think about you being different. It is called survival.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

8. No, I think people are generally selfish pricks.

They may especially not want "Tyrone" or "Shaniqua" to get cheaper health care, but they don't want anyone to get cheaper health care if it means that their own health care will be either more expensive or inferior. I think that's the bottom line.

[madamesilverspurs]

9. The healthcare 'discussion'

is the horse that the current batch of racists rode in on. At least that's the case in this part of the country. Having attended numerous town hall meetings and having attempted conversation with 9-12ers and teabaggers at those events I can attest to a time frame of about two minutes for arguments against healthcare reform to degrade into racial insinuations about Obama.

[Number23]

11. Excellent point

I can attest to a time frame of about two minutes for arguments against healthcare reform to degrade into racial insinuations about Obama.

And as a white person, you'll get those two minutes. The teabaggers will hide their true feelings from me the minute I walk into the room. But they feel that they'll be able to cut loose and be honest with you because you share the same skin tone.

This is why many black people have a "radar" about this kind of thing and don't even mess around with someone after we've identified them as racist. Life is too short to deal with dumbasses who hold you to a different standard solely because of the color of your skin -- no matter what their political leanings.

[DevonRex]

13. When I called my teabagger sister on her racist emails, she pretended

it was to get people to "pray" about the issues. Like what's to pray about when she emails racist BS to all her teabagger friends? Well, at least she quit sending me the garbage after I hit "reply all" and raked her over the coals for it. So one of MY prayers was answered.

The teabaggers haven't grown brains and hearts, so I guess I'll have to keep praying for that one.

[rebel with a cause]

18. Sharing racial feelings with another white person

is something that some white people do feel comfortable with, just as other people feel comfortable sharing their secret feelings with those like themselves. People that did not know me or my last name have in the past said some of the worst racist things in front of me and been shocked to hear what I had to say to them in response. Heads did explode.

Reading blogs the last few days have reminded me that if all of us, and I do mean all of us, would remind prejudice people that not all people of any race are alike we would all be better off.

Some time ago I was with a friend when she began talking to another person. That person started to tell her something but then looked at me, stopped and said "Oh, I better not say anything now. I'll tell you later." My friend laughed and told her not to worry that it was okay, I was 'one of the good ones'.

When white people called my ex husband 'one of the good ones' I knew what that meant. It meant he did not fit the stereotype, that he was just as prejudice as they were or he was basically their peon. But now that an African American friend called me that, I had to ask myself, what does it mean in this instance? I took it that it meant I was not prejudice but was I fooling myself? :shrug:

Sorry for rambling on. I think too much.

[NJmaverick]

19. Yes, race is a big factor around much of what is going on