Republicans Think Racism Increasingly Applies to White Folks

It sure feels like the country, especially in states like Florida, is in the middle of a culture war over discussions of race in education and diversity initiatives. That could explain, in part, some of the surprising findings of a Washington Post analysis using Yahoo/YouGov's latest polling data.

The polling data, which asked questions about whether racism is a problem now and has been in the past for various racial groups, came to some interesting conclusions. Most significant: Republican respondents who were polled were more likely to say racism is less of a problem now for Black people than in the past. Shockingly (at least if you don't currently live in a red state), Republicans were much more likely to say that racism is a bigger problem today for whites than in the past.

As the Post writes, "If we directly compare those two racial groups, the difference between Republicans and other groups (of which Republicans are members) becomes clear. Less likely to say anti-Black racism was a problem in the past; more likely to say anti-White racism is a problem now."

The big distinction in the polling, it seems, is whether the groups polled believe that there's a lot of discrimination happening or just some. If you ask Republicans if there's a lot of racism against groups such as Asian-Amerians, Latinos or Blacks, their response dips to below 25 percent. If you ask that same group if whites are facing discrimination, it jumps above that line and is increasing over time.
When that's your belief structure, it's easy to imagine that ideas like institutional racism are not really a thing. The Post comes to that same idea, concluding in its analysis: "Only about a third of Republicans think that there is racism embedded in social, economic and legal structures in the United States. A majority of Americans overall do."