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Americans Rate Racial and Ethnic Relations in U.S. Positively
Americans rate relations between racial and ethnic groups positively, and in most cases better than in 2008. They rate relations between whites and Asians more positively, and relations between blacks and Hispanics less positively.
news.gallup.com
This Gallop poll taken in 2013 shows race relations and our views about different racial groups were pretty great back then. With the majority of Americans of all ethnicities and races viewing each other positively. And this positive trend started gaining traction in the late 90's and early 2000's. It was at an all time high after Obama was elected in 2008.
But then it started going way downhill from there to today. And it really came to a head in 2020. Now we're more divided than ever.
So what caused this negative downturn? Why 2013?
The rise of social media. Ever since social media became the primary source of our news and how we engaged with world events, all of us have become increasingly polarized and divided.
Social media is consumed in small snippets that are often selectively edited or even completely made up. The majority of people already know this intellectually, but it still works regardless. Because even if we're logically aware a lot of social media is bullshit, they work on our emotions - so it still sticks.
And this happens because social media operates on two things:
1. Confirmation Bias - We focus on stories that just confirms our existing beliefs. And we just automatically believe stories that we want to believe on an emotional level - as opposed to the objective truth. We don't corroborate the stories, but rather just choose to believe them. And once you believe something, it takes a lot to actually change it for most people.
2. Negativity bias - We have a tendency to consume stories that are profoundly negative and the algorithm only reinforces that.
So if you believe a lot of black people are being killed by cops unfairly, you will be constantly be fed stories that reinforces that belief that it's happening everywhere. But the objective reality is that cops unjustly killing minorities is a very small number statistically.
Or white people might get constant stories of black people violently attacking white folks. You'll get constant individual stories of black people attacking white victims. But the objective truth is that most violence is not interracial. It's intra-racial - it's black people attacking other black people and white people attacking other white people. That's just a simple fact.
Social media exaggerates the most negative incidents and it just FEELS like there is an epidemic of police brutality against black people or no white person is safe from black criminals.
Social media is the problem. None of us are getting a real gauge of the complete truth because we're only getting fragments of information. Tiktok made it even worse.
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