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Chris Higgins
Is Racism Statistically Predictable?
by Chris Higgins - June 3, 2009 - 4:24 PM

I’ve mentioned statistician Nate Silver before (How Nate Silver Predicted Obama’s Win; Nate Silver’s Oscar Predictions, Reviewed). He’s best known for his statistical work on the 2008 US Presidential election, in which he analyzed various publicly available poll results, handicapped them using baseball-style analysis, and did a surprisingly good job of predicting how specific areas of the US would vote. After the election, Silver gave a TED Talk in which he talked about racism as a factor in the election — he wanted to know whether racism as a factor affecting voting was statistically predictable — meaning whether some other factor (like geography) could predict whether a given white voter would not vote for a black candidate. Silver’s talk is now up on the TED site, and it’s worth a look.

Discussed: the 2008 US Presidential election, the “blueing” of America, what’s the matter with Arkansas, “rednecks with guns,” asking people if race was an important factor influencing their votes, is racism statistically predictable, the General Social Survey, white people with black neighbors, interracial marriage, street grids versus cul-de-sacs, intercollegiate exchange from New York to the South, predictable problems being designable (solvable).

I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but Silver’s short answer is: yes, racism is predictable (statistically speaking). It’s not about urban versus rural, though — watch the talk to see what factor predicts racism affecting votes.

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Comments (14)

  1. Wow. I guess I’m lucky that as a resident of Tennessee, I didn’t lack in education, upbringing or interaction with people of other races. And I don’t recall too many people voting for McCain because they hate black people…

    Although West Tennessee is pretty rural, there is still a good mix, people still have to go to Wal-Mart, the South’s melting pot.

    I think racism is always predictable. It will always be here, so there will always be ways to study it.

    posted by Tracie on 6-3-2009 at 5:26 pm

  2. Of course, racially based voting *for* Barack Obama was much more common.

    posted by Simon on 6-3-2009 at 6:24 pm

  3. Since when is it impossible for black people to not be racist? Is there something that I missed?

    posted by Brett on 6-3-2009 at 11:23 pm

  4. Err… got my negatives doubled.

    Since when is it impossible for black people to be racist?

    posted by Brett on 6-3-2009 at 11:52 pm

  5. Of course, that’s not racism, which is the topic.

    posted by Jeff on 6-4-2009 at 12:01 am

  6. Whoa folks, let’s not have a racial flame war here. Okay?

    posted by Chris Higgins on 6-4-2009 at 12:09 am

  7. Chris, I think there is some valid concern about the talk. I wouldn’t question Silver’s methodology but his precepts framing the talk are suspect. Does Silver not believe that African-Americans be racist or does he simply lack statistical information to imply anything? Considering his conclusions, wouldn’t it be relevant to study all monoracial neighborhood regardless of which race it is?

    posted by Tom in GA on 6-4-2009 at 6:55 am

  8. Poor grammar nails me again… insert “can” before “be racist” in sentence three and pluralize “neighborhood” in sentence four.

    posted by Tom in GA on 6-4-2009 at 6:58 am

  9. I have to agree that this was a one sided overview of the situation. This was singling out one race as being racist against one other race. It may be just me, but this “study” really does not sit well with me and I do not find myself being able to relate or fully understand how this relates to issues today because of the one-sidedness of it.

    posted by Jennfier on 6-4-2009 at 9:20 am

  10. Email the dude and ask if the “other side” has been studied. If not, the survey results could be publicly available, ready for your own perusal.

    posted by Ask and ye might receive on 6-4-2009 at 10:42 am

  11. General Social Survey

    norc.org/GSS+Website

    Have at it, everyone!

    posted by Found on 6-4-2009 at 10:47 am

  12. If one were to look at this presentation not as just about white people as the issue, but as point of reference to a problem. It come to a point of social interaction, the use of voting statistics to prove a point just pointed out that people in those states are intolerant, which is untrue, to a point. The problem is that the lack of social interaction with people of a different races produces a stereotype that influences the outcome of the interaction. This can be seen in any neighborhood that is mono-racial, wether it is white, black, yellow, red, or purple.

    posted by Paul on 6-4-2009 at 11:07 am

  13. I see your point Paul but I think it is shoddy to say “here is one race that when self-segregating by residence shows a tendency toward racism” and think that appropriately extrapolates to “all races have a tendency toward racism when self-segregating by residence to an equal degree”.

    Maybe there are factors underlying racist tendencies that aren’t visible when only focusing on whites (such as racial makeup of workplace, whether children attend schools where bussing is employed to diversify the school, etc.?

    posted by Tom in GA on 6-4-2009 at 6:49 pm

  14. Nate Silver was very clear in that the questions focused on ALL races other than “white”. He didn’t just talk about black/brown/african-american. This would, presumably, include Asians, Middle Eastern people, and Hispanics.

    As for the election, well, this is a new one, isn’t it? We’ve never been able to ask the question before “did you NOT vote because the guy was white?”, because they’ve all been white.

    posted by dawn on 6-7-2009 at 9:30 pm

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