Malevolence

Pew Research Center recently came out with a new report, titled: Most Black Americans Believe Racial Conspiracy Theories About U.S. Institutions. It's a survey that questioned "4,736 U.S. adults who identify as Black and non-Hispanic, multiracial Black and non-Hispanic, or Black and Hispanic," about whether they had heard of what Pew refers to as "racial conspiracy theories" concerning certain institutions within the United States, and if they had, whether they believed them.

The report starts out going into responses about the people's experiences of racism, and the negative effects thereof, such as being angry, frightened, anxious, pessimistic and depressed. And anger was the overwhelming emotion; some three quarters of those surveyed who said that they had experienced racial discrimination, either regularly or from time to time, reported feeling angry about it. In all, about 57% percent of respondents reported anger at what they perceive as unjust and unfair treatment. Similarly, three quarters of the people surveyed professed a belief that they had to work "more than everyone else" to attain success in the United States. Given this, it's little wonder that majorities of respondents believed that all seven racial conspiracy theories that Pew asked about either "Happened in the past and still happens today," or perhaps worse, "Did not happen in the past but happens today."

Interestingly, standard ideological fault lines are evident in Pew's data. While 66% of Black people surveyed who leaned Democratic or were Democrats reported a belief that "the economic system was designed to hold Black people back a great deal or fair amount, only 52% of those who leaned or were Republicans reported the same. But when it comes to the belief that "the government promoting birth control and/or abortion in order to keep the Black population small is something that happens today," 63% of Republicans and Republican leaners profess belief, as opposed to only 49% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. Partisans are most unified in the belief that the news media was designed to hold Black people back, with 52% of Democrats and Democratic leaners and 53% of Republicans and Republican leaners professing belief.

Overall, it paints a picture of a demographic that feels that the deck has been rather intentionally stacked against them. And this reminded me of something that Glenn Loury had noted in his Freakonomics interview:

If we start out with racial disparities that are not a reflection of fundamental differences between the populations, but that are rather an artifact of the self-fulfilling negative beliefs that employers might have about a population, that employers think the Black kids are on the whole not going to work out if you employ them, and hence are requiring exceptional additional evidence before they’re willing to take a chance on a Black kid and hire him. The Black kids, knowing that it’s going to be difficult for them to get hired, when they consider whether or not to make the investment to improve their skills, decide it’s not worth it because the chances of them getting hired are not so great. And so they don’t make the investment. That could be an equilibrium. The Black kids don’t make the investment because the employers are unwilling to hire them. The employer is unwilling to hire them because the Black kids aren’t making the investment.

And in a lot of ways, this is the tragedy of the whole thing. Part of it comes from the lack of proportional participation in business (even though this is not party of Loury's critique); if there were more Black employers, it would be easier for young Black people to find jobs where employing them wasn't seen as "taking a chance." But part if it the equilibrium brought about by Black people responding to the lack of return on investing in themselves by not making what they understand to be an exceptional investment. Once might conclude that it's a damaging response, but it's difficult to make the case that it's an irrational one.

Even if some of the concerns that drive it do seem irrational, or at least overly broad. Part of the general definition of a "conspiracy theory" is the idea that powerful and malevolent groups or institutions are colluding in secret to bring about damaging events or situations. The survey questions that Pew asked respondents referred to groups such as "big business," "medical researchers," "the police" and "the government." These, viewed as a whole are large, monolithic and sometimes omnipresent entities. And this is a viewpoint that can be wearing, because it makes the issue inescapable. If one's local police have a tendency to mistreat people, a move to a new town might help. But if "the police" nationwide are plotting, where does one go?