Of Course: Study Shows White Liberals Talk Down To Minorities, Avoiding Language That Demonstrates Higher Competency

Obviously. They think of minorities as PeTA thinks of animals, or pro-lifers think of babies: incompetents incapable of standing on their own.

At least PETA and pro-lifers have a strong case to made there.

What will White Liberals say about this? What will their explanation be?

Oh, there won't be one: the media won't bother to explore this very interesting finding.

This article on Yale's website was published almost two weeks ago.

Ah, there you go. Media liberals who #LoveDaScience just happened to completely miss this article for two weeks until John Sexton found it.

The author of the article, Cydney Dupree, is one of two researchers who started out looking at how white presidential candidates talk when they are addressing a mostly black audience compared to when they are speaking to a mostly white audience. Dupree, who is black, and co-researcher Susan Fiske of Princeton found the candidates were less likely to use words that expressed competence and more likely to use words that expressed warmth when talking to a minority audience:

The team found that Democratic candidates used fewer competence-related words in speeches delivered to mostly minority audiences than they did in speeches delivered to mostly white audiences. The difference wasn’' statistically significant in speeches by Republican candidates, though "it was harder to find speeches from Republicans delivered to minority audiences," Dupree notes. There was no difference in Democrats' or Republicans' usage of words related to warmth. "It was really surprising to see that for nearly three decades, Democratic presidential candidates have been engaging in this predicted behavior."

But that was just the beginning. Next, the researchers started designing a new experiment which would attempt to discover if the same pattern held true for ordinary people, i.e. non-politicians who were simply talking to another individual.

...

And what they found is that white liberals were less likely to stress competence when talking with someone they believed was black. Conservative white participants did not show this same "competence downshift" when talking to someone they believed was black.

The researchers found that liberal individuals were less likely to use words that would make them appear highly competent when the person they were addressing was presumed to be black rather than white. No significant differences were seen in the word selection of conservatives based on the presumed race of their partner. "It was kind of an unpleasant surprise to see this subtle but persistent effect"” Dupree says. "Even if it's ultimately well-intentioned, it could be seen as patronizing."

Could be.

Could be.

Well, like I said, don't expect the media to dive into this topic. It's uncomfortable for white liberals, and their black liberal colleagues as well, and the media is made up of nothing but white liberals with a smattering of Don't Call Us Racist hires, so this will make them very uncomfortable indeed.

And the media is all about pleasing itself and its fellow liberals these days, never challenging themselves or their audience.

They ignored this study for two weeks and they'll keep on doing so.

Firefighters.

posted by Ace of Spades at 05:50 PM

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