
Americans misperceive racial economic equality - MaysonL
https://www.pnas.org/content/114/39/10324
======
DoofusOfDeath
I have some misgivings about their reasoning after reading the first section
("Significance") of the article. (Apologies if I just didn't read far enough.)

> Race-based economic inequality is both a defining and persistent feature of
> the United States that is at odds with national narratives regarding
> progress toward racial equality.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into their phrasing, but saying that inequality
is "race- _based_ " sounds like a claim regarding causality. If so, I wonder
if they're overreaching and should have limited their claims to _correlation_.

> ... Notably, White Americans generated more accurate estimates of
> Black–White equality when asked to consider the persistence of race-based
> discrimination in American society.

I could imagine many primer statements that potentially improve the accuracy
of the estimates people come up with. But that alone would not show those
primer statements to be true. I hope the paper's authors and readers avoid
that logical trap.

~~~
mikeash
When two things are correlated, there are four possibilities: A causes B, B
causes A, A and B are both caused by some third factor C, or they are
correlated by random chance.

It is unlikely that economic inequality causes race, or that some third factor
causes both economic inequality and race.

The odds of race and economic situations being correlated by random chance are
vanishingly small. The numbers involved are so big that there’s just no way,
it would be like flipping a fair coin a million times and getting 700,000
heads.

That leaves race causing economic inequality, probably by way of intermediate
factors like oppression caused by race.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It is unlikely that economic inequality cause race

I wouldn't rule it out entirely for individuals where social pressure wouldn't
react strongly against it (those of ambiguous appearance without a clear
single identity imposed on uprearing); racial identity in those cases is
probably shaped in part by experience of which economic status is a component.

But that's, if it exists, a marginal effect around the edges.

~~~
mikeash
Great point. If you’re relying on self-reporting or subjective evaluation
rather than objective measures (and good luck finding an objective measure of
race that matches what people think it is) then there will surely be some
influence in that direction.

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oblib
This seems to reflect my personal experiences here in SW Missouri. I live in a
rural, very white, area and most all my neighbors simply do not believe there
is any such thing as racial economic inequality and I've not had much success
in relating how things are different in bigger cites and "ghettos".

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protomyth
Title of study doesn't correspond to actual study's sample: "sampling White
and Black Americans from the top and bottom of the national income
distribution" which hardly qualifies as the more general "Americans". I am a
little sick of these studies with broad titles to get quoted and actual
samples that are not as representative.

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bellerose
The psychological impact one may have, from knowing their own ancestors were
once slaves and so abused by being a different race. Must play a part in the
inequality. I’ve never asked someone how it may bring paranoia or anxiety but
it probably helps anger a person in situations of less certainty of being
wronged by negligence vs malice. It must mentally hinder a person. People were
intelligent in history and even during slavery. So it must make reality
questionable. Usually this bounces in my head a lot. I find the world really
sad thinking about it.

~~~
spraak
I'm white and my wife is black, and she's said and confirmed this with me,
saying she's surprised how I will handle certain situations.

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clircle
PNAS is not a well regarded journal by some people
[https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2017/10/04/breaking-p...](https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2017/10/04/breaking-
pnas-changes-slogan/)

~~~
dragonwriter
Perhaps, but you didn't read your own link if you think it supports that
claim, since it basically says “PNAS marketing material implied they never
made bad publication calls, and when I pointed that out to they fixed it, and,
just to be clear, they are a great journal.”

