According to a controversial new analysis by theWashington Post, Trump voters were motivated by “racism” more than a number of other factors in their presidential ballot choice last November.
By Thomas Williams, PH.D | Breitbart
The incendiary piece, titled “Racism motivated Trump voters more than authoritarianism” was written by Thomas Wood, an assistant professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, and proposes to examine the results of the latest American National Election Study (ANES) regarding voter attitudes.
Mr. Wood bases his skewed conclusions on a series of assumptions that reveal deep misunderstandings regarding the nature of racism, as well as Wood’s own profound racial biases.
To begin with, Wood only analyzed the opinions of white voters—his own racially biased choice. How black voters feel about whites, or what motivated many blacks to vote for Trump is disregarded as irrelevant to his study. Yet, in looking at racism, why would an objective examiner only look at the attitudes of whites?
Second, in the four questions looked at by Wood, racism is never actually addressed. Instead, Wood employs a “symbolic racism scale” that interprets people’s views on programs like Affirmative Action as concealing a hidden racism that is never overtly expressed. Wood said that these attitudes are “coded as more racially biased.”
If Wood were to employ serious academic standards regarding statistical analysis, he would start with a definition of racism—the key concept he is attempting to explore. If he had done this, however, it would have destroyed the entire thesis he is trying to advance.
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, racism is “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.”
The report that Wood proposes to interpret does not actually address racism at all, and to suggest that it does is academically dishonest. The four statements considered by Wood bear this out.
The first statement reads: “Irish, Italians, Jewish and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors.”
To read the rest of the article visit Breitbart.
