The most racist places in America, according to Google(washingtonpost.com)
washingtonpost.com
The most racist places in America, according to Google
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/28/the-most-racist-places-in-america-according-to-google/?postshare=7781430242128505%3Flink%3Dmktw
2 comments
I wish the article had explained how the individual regions on the map are determined. It probably has to do with how the searches are geo-located but it seems like it could've skewed the results for some places.
They look like Neilsen's Designated Market Areas to me - that weird little square one around Alpena, Michigan is a pretty strong indicator.
For California, that above average outlier appears to be counties Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernadino and Inyo. Wonder what that's all about?
It's an area in California with a lot of black people.
There's more to racism than just this, but in America, racism tends to increase with proximity. More diversity in a community leads to less trust between (and within) ethnic groups.
There's more to racism than just this, but in America, racism tends to increase with proximity. More diversity in a community leads to less trust between (and within) ethnic groups.
I would have thought proximity could also ease tension if there is a degree of integration. This theory can be confirmed or rejected by extending the original research to cover more races.
That's called the 'contact hypothesis'. There's been a few studies that support it (including a famous one involving WWII soldiers' attitudes to mixed-race platoons) but most social science research has found the opposite.
Robert Putnam is the political scientist who's done the most work on this, and if you're curious, his most relevant paper is probably 'E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century'.
Putnam is an interesting academic - he was (and still is, I believe) utterly dismayed by the results of his research, but decided to publish it anyway.
Robert Putnam is the political scientist who's done the most work on this, and if you're curious, his most relevant paper is probably 'E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century'.
Putnam is an interesting academic - he was (and still is, I believe) utterly dismayed by the results of his research, but decided to publish it anyway.
> I would have thought proximity could also ease tension if there is a degree of integration.
It might, but racial proximity in America often doesn't involve much integration, it is proximity of communities segregated by a combination of voluntary choice and informal discrimination. On the black/white divide specifically, there are in many areas strong cultural forces on both sides working against integration, and making it so that proximity increases conflict which reinforces hostile attitudes on both sides.
It might, but racial proximity in America often doesn't involve much integration, it is proximity of communities segregated by a combination of voluntary choice and informal discrimination. On the black/white divide specifically, there are in many areas strong cultural forces on both sides working against integration, and making it so that proximity increases conflict which reinforces hostile attitudes on both sides.
The counties you named as part of the "above average outlier" account for nearly half the population of the state, so I'm not sure that's really, for California, an "outlier" region.
The visualization also excludes the middle (that is, there is no color band centered on the middle, everything is forced into "below" or "above" average); if you view it as "most of the state outside the central/north coast is around the national average, and the central/north coast and a small part of the interior is notably below that" its not really all that surprising of a result.
The visualization also excludes the middle (that is, there is no color band centered on the middle, everything is forced into "below" or "above" average); if you view it as "most of the state outside the central/north coast is around the national average, and the central/north coast and a small part of the interior is notably below that" its not really all that surprising of a result.