If They Only Knew: Informing Blacks and Whites about the Racial Wealth Gap
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Even after the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020, most White American liberals
continue to oppose race-targeted remedial policies. Similarly, Black support for racially
redistributive policies is often less than monolithic. Would support for policies
to eradicate racial inequality increase if common misperceptions held by White and
Black Americans about racial inequality were corrected? Hutchings and co-authors examine
this question with three online survey experiments that focus on the racial wealth
gap. In Study 1 subjects were randomly assigned either to a control condition, where
they were merely provided a definition of the racial wealth gap, or to one of two
treatment conditions that provided textual and visual information on the current size
of the Black-White racial wealth gap. In general, they find that the treatment conditions
do increase information levels on the presence and perceived size of the racial wealth
gap, but they typically do not increase support for racially redistributive policies.
In a second experiment, they also seek to correct misperceptions about the racial
inequality by providing information about the limited effects of education in reducing
the racial wealth gap. Again, they find that our treatments inform but rarely alter
policy views. Lastly, in a third experiment they modify treatments to make them more
accessible and broaden the range of outcome variables. Results are largely
consistent with the first two designs. In their conclusion, they discuss the implications
of seeking to correct misperceptions about Black-White inequality among Blacks and
White liberals.
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