White Southerners living in the former Cotton Belt are more likely to have negative attitudes toward African Americans than other Southerners, according to a new University of Rochester study.
And they are more likely to be Republican and to express opposition to social and economic justice policies such as affirmative action, the study says.
Researchers Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen say that the study provides quantitative evidence of the long-lasting effects of slavery on political attitudes in the South.
The research doesn’t suggest that slavery is the root cause of racism in contemporary America. But it does show that there is a link between the cotton plantation economy of the Old South — and its reliance on slave labor — and stronger racial bias in the region.
And the repression of black Americans after emancipation encouraged the persistence of these attitudes.
The researchers conducted a county-by-county analysis of census data and opinion surveys of more than 39,000 Southern whites. The “slavery effect” accounts for up to a 15 percent difference in political parties. About 30 percent of whites in former plantation areas identify as Democrats, compared to 40 percent to 45 percent in counties where slaves were less than 3 percent of the population.
The South, in political terms, might look similar to the North if it hadn’t been for the South’s dependence on slavery, according to the study.
The study also showed that there was a correlation between racial violence and economics in the Cotton Belt. Post-slavery lynching rates were highest in the Cotton Belt compared to other parts of the South.
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2013.
This statement…
“The “slavery effect” accounts for up to a 15 percent difference in political parties. About 30 percent of whites in former plantation areas identify as Democrats, compared to 40 percent to 45 percent in counties where slaves were less than 3 percent of the population.”
…does not validate this statement….
“And they are more likely to be Republican”.
We need the Republican enrollment percentages to prove the claim. Particularly given that there are still a sizable percentage of whites who remain Democrats despite their conservative leanings because their family has always been Democratic (from pre-Civil War up to the 1970s when the southern Dems were the party of social Neanderthals).
I think this article is biased towards the south. I am originally from the south, and I have seen more racism in the Finger Lakes Region and Rochester than I ever saw while living in the south. I think this “white in the south are racists” attitude is an archaic attitude and seems to based on ignorance of southern socio-cultural relationships. I’ve lived here for twelve years and in that time, I have been associated with “Republicanism”, “Conservatism” and “Racism” because of my accent when in fact, I am “Democrat”, “Liberal” and ‘non-racist”. I think those who did this study need to “live” in the south a while and THEN do a study after they’ve lived among it’s people.
Duh. Travel to the South, its flagrantly apparent. I lived in Atalanta for a year. Most of the population there is black, even the white people act black, yet the white people dont care for black people. It didn’t make any sense.
I don’t know why CITY is reporting on this research finding?
An interesting companion study from last year…..
“Data-mapping experts from the Floating Sheep blog mapped geo-located Tweets that contained hate speech and were made after President Barack Obama was re-elected late Tuesday night. The analysis collected tweets that contained the text (racist term deleted) AND also contain the text “Obama” OR “reelected” OR “won”.
So what state had the most racist tweets? Mississippi and Alabama came in first place. Georgia, Louisiana, and Tennessee trailing them behind.”
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/11/a_n…
Why re-litigate the past? And what does this have to do with Rochester or Monroe County? I thought this was a local paper, focusing on local issues and an “alternative” to the stenographers at the D+C. Guess not.
In other news, academics with too much time on their hands found that a left-handed child’s kindergarten performance depends on the astrological sign of her or his oldest paternal great-great-great-grandparent born in a year ending in zero (if none, the child will become a drug addict).
You can file this one under “junk statistics”.
Slavery was not the fault of the United States – it was inherited from the British who allowed slavery in their American colonies. The US fought the civil war to finally end slavery at great human cost. Time to stop the blame.