The more talk about white privilege, the less sympathy liberals have for whites living in poverty, according to new research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.
A research team led by Colgate University psychologist Erin Cooley examined the “consequences” of white privilege theory through a series of two studies. The first recruited 484 Americans online and asked them to read a short essay about white privilege, then asked to name privilege white Americans enjoy.
Afterwards, participants were asked to read a newspaper column about a low-income New York City resident named Kevin who was raised by a single mother, on welfare, and “doesn’t feel like he has the skills or ability to obtain a well-paying job.” Researchers told half the participants Kevin was white, and the other half that Kevin was black.
Researchers asked participants about their level of sympathy and compassion for Kevin, as well as a series of other questions to establish their political ideology.
Pacific Standard reports:
The researchers found that ‘social liberals showed significantly less sympathy for Kevin when he was described as white compared to black.’ In contrast, social conservatives’ attitudes toward the young man were basically the same, no matter his reported race.
Put another way, white privilege theory – or the popular progressive notion that America is hopelessly stacked against blacks and other minorities to the advantage of whites – leads to a racist perspective on poverty among liberals who buy into it. Conservatives, the study suggests, are unmoved by race.
In a second study of 650 people, the researchers conducted essentially the same test, except about half of the participants did not read about white privilege before learning about Kevin’s plight. That study found the information about white privilege theory only reduced sympathy for poor whites, but did nothing to affect attitudes about poor blacks.
The findings suggest liberals “implicitly play the ‘oppression Olympics,” researchers wrote. “That is, they draw upon default hierarchies of groups in order to mentally rank who is worst off.”
Because whites are presumably the most privileged, problems plaguing poor whites “may be more likely to be interpreted as stemming from internal rather than external factors,” researchers wrote.
Liberals essentially commit the same offense they often level at their political foes – attributing poverty to things like laziness or poor work ethic, rather than broader issues in society.
“We hypothesized that white privilege lessons may both highlight structural privilege based on race, and simultaneously decrease sympathy for other challenges some white people endure – especially among social liberals who may be particularly receptive to structural explanations of inequality,” the researchers wrote in the abstract for “Complex interactions of race and class: Among social liberals, learning about White privilege reduces sympathy, increases blame, and decreases external attributions for White people struggling with poverty.”
“Indeed, both studies revealed that while social liberals were overall more sympathetic to poor people than social conservatives, reading about white privilege decreased their sympathy for a poor white (vs black) person.
“Moreover, these shifts in sympathy were associated with greater punishment/blame and fewer external attributions for a poor white person’s plight. We conclude that, among social liberals, white privilege lessons may increase beliefs that poor white people have failed to take advantage of their racial privilege – leading to negative social evaluations,” the researchers wrote.
Cooley and her team believe the study “might help to explain why poor white Americans seem to feel disenfranchised or forgotten by well-off others.”
It also provides perspective on Trump’s 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton, who built her losing campaign on the type of racist identity politics that are now emulated by dozens of Democrats running for president four years later.
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