I am not surprised that the study on racial bias and partisanship that the WashPost reported on (see here) resonates among partisans (see the comments to my previous post). After all, political elites are pretty polarized these days and grateful for any partisan ammunition.
As an empirical political scientist, however, I should point out that even if Republicans in fact have stronger racial biases than Democrats, this does not explain why the federal government response to Hurricane Katrina was a disaster. Racism may or may not have played a role -- we don't have the evidence to decide one way or the other.
Let's go through the arguments:
First, the type of bias measured by Project Implicit is a cognitive bias, which is different from prejudice, which in turn is different from discrimination. Now, the differential treatment of Katrina victims (those with cars got away and stayed in motels, those without cars ended up in football arenas) constituted discrimination -- those people who were treated badly were predominantly poor and members of racial and ethnic minorities. However, we do not know whether the discrimination was caused by prejudice (i.e., public officials did not make better plans because they did not want to bother about blacks) or inability (i.e., public officials did not make better plans because they couldn't, due to incompetence or missing resources), or other factors such as housing patterns, poverty patterns, and the like. The same outcome could have been caused by different causes.
Second, the post-Katrina criticism of the federal government has centered on President Bush (see "George Bush don't like black people"). However, we do not know whether he in fact participated in the Project Implicit study, and if he did participate, we would not know whether he personally in fact showed more racial bias than most Democrats or not :-) . The study drew conclusions about differences between groups of partisans; it does not allow us to draw conclusions about specific individuals.
Third, in order to draw empirical conclusions about the possible causes of an event, we have to compare the event with other, comparable, events. Assume for argument's sake that the administration in fact was racially biased. Then, to show that the bias translates into discrimination, it would not be enough to show that the Katrina response was discriminatory. We would have to show either that the response of the same administration to other comparable disasters (not involving minorities) was not discriminatory, or that the response of other public officials (with fewer racial biases) to the same disaster was not discriminatory. The first strategy fails. There was not a comparable disaster to which the Bush administration had to react. Hurricane Rita, a month after Katrina, did not create an emergency that was comparable to Katrina. The second strategy is available, as a number of public officials at different levels of government, with different party affiliations, were responsible to protect New Orleans residents. Comparing their reaction, we find that all of them -- federal officials, state officials, Republicans, Democrats, blacks, whites -- failed to perform adequately. Again, no evidence that the administrations low performance was due to racial bias.
2 comments:
I agree with your arguments Dr. B, to a certain extent. Though race may have not played a direct factor in the Katirna response, it is glaringly obvious that socio-economic level did. Those who had the means and the ways to exit N.O. prior to Katrina, (mid-class/upper class) did just that. Those who did not have the means or the ways (lower class), were told to go to the Superdome and rot. I'm not sure how that can be refuted.
It is a sad reality and a sin on or society that racial minorities constitute the majority of the lower class. Therefore, any negligence shown towards the lower class, is indirectly negligence towards African Americans, and others.
Those who want to "take it easy" on the President, need to wake up. The recent disclosure of documents warning of a levee breach prior to Katrina, are absolutely contradictory to Bush's assertion that "no one saw the levee breach coming" (I forgot what show he said that on). If he doesn't like the criticism he has received over Katrina, than he should not have become President. The first and foremost job of a president is to protect the people from disaster, both natural and otherwise. The President could not have prevented the intial loss of life from Katrina, but with a better disaster response, he could have alleviated future loss of life which totalled in the several hundreds. Although 9/11 is unrelated, Bush has the unfortunate distinction of being in the Oval Office during the worst terrorist disaster on U.S. soil, and the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.
As the leader of the federal gov., he is ultimately responsible for their actions, and therefore he should receive the blunt of the blame. Including hiring cronies like Mike Brown, to do a "heckuva job" as FEMA director.
LOL, that song (George Bush Don't Like Black People) was INSANE!! I loved it. KANYE > BUSH.
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