Lying m************

A week or two ago, an article accusing Pete Buttigieg of being "a lying motherf*****" went viral on  Twitter.  Buttigieg's offense was that he was "more willing to perpetuate the fantastic narrative of negro neighborhoods needing more role models and briefcase-carriers than make the people in power stare into the sun and see the blinding light of racism."   Another way to put it was that his offense was to have shown more more concern with advancing racial equality than with denouncing the "people in power" as racist. 

Twitter has moved on to other things, but this reminded me of an  earlier post on beliefs about the reasons for racial inequality.  The questions were whether racial differences were "mainly due to discrimination," "because most [negroes/blacks/African-Americans] have less in-born ability to learn," "because most [N/B/A-A] don't have the chance for education that it takes to rise out of poverty," and "because most [N/B/A-A] just don't have the motivation or will power to pull themselves up out of poverty."  Among whites, there had been large declines in the number saying they were because of less in-born ability and less motivation, and little change (maybe a slight decline) in the number saying they were because of the other two.  That is, whites were less likely to choose the two answers that could be seen as disparaging.  The pattern among blacks is different:  declines for discrimination and education, and increases for ability and motivation.  The figures for blacks and whites as a whole can be found in the previous post:  what I'll do here is break it down by education for the "early" (1985-9) and "contemporary" (2010-18) periods.  First, in-born ability:

 Next, motivation or will power:

In the early period there were substantial differences in opinion by race and education.  In the contemporary period, the educational differences remain, but the racial differences have essentially disappeared.  That is, large majorities educated people of both races reject explanations that "blame the victim," but many less educated people (of both races) accept them. 


I also thought of another post, about the reasons that people are poor:  lack of effort or circumstances beyond their control.  The percent saying "lack of effort" minus  the percent saying "circumstances":

 A definite trend towards "circumstances."   

Taken together, I think that these changes support an idea I proposed a couple of years ago:  there is a shift towards social egalitarianism.  One aspect of this shift is that that advantaged people are less likely to say that the problems of disadvantaged people are their own fault. 

In my view, this change in outlook is basically a good thing, even though it sometimes leads people to focus on pinning the blame on "privileged" people rather than reducing inequality.

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]