Millennials are just about as racist as their parents

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Millennials are just about as racist as their parents

Wonkblog
By Scott Clement April 7 at 8:45 AM
@sfcpoll

Racial slurs that have cropped up chants, e-mails and white boards on America's college campuses have some people worried about whether the nation's diverse and fawned-over millennial generation is not as racially tolerant as might be expected. The Christian Science Monitor went so far as to ask, "Are millennials racist?"

Surely not all millennials are racist, but data can address a key related question: Are white millennials less racially prejudiced than past generations?

We took a look at five measures of racial prejudice from the General Social Survey conducted by NORC's 2010, 2012 and 2014 waves. Among many other questions, the survey asked respondents to rate whites and blacks on a scale from being "hardworking" to "lazy." Using this data, we can categorize respondents into whether they rated whites or blacks as being lazier, more hardworking or the same.

When it comes to explicit prejudice against blacks, non-Hispanic white millenials are not much different than whites belonging to Generation X (born 1965-1980) or Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964). White millennials (using a definition of being born after 1980) express the least prejudice on 4 out of 5 measures in the survey, but only by a matter of 1 to 3 percentage points, not a meaningful difference. On work ethic, 31 percent of millennials rate blacks as lazier than whites, compared to 32 percent of Generation X whites and 35 percent of Baby Boomers. (Question wording and methodology at the end).
....

Peyton M. Craighill contributed to this post.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Saddly, it seems that it's passed between the generations.

[Gormy Cuss]

2. I thought we lived in post-racial America.

But THIS is why it matters to call out bigotry when we see it.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

3. Of course some are,

racism is largely taught, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes by example, sometimes by not having it nipped in the bud (getting my mouth washed out with soap for using the N word as a 4 year old for instance). It certainly can't be legislated out of existence though we are trying.