“A new study suggests that white Americans who hold liberal socio-political views use language that makes them appear less competent in an effort to get along with racial minorities.”
In other words, they dumb themselves down because they assume black people are mentally inferior and cannot comprehend intelligent words.
“According to new research by Cydney Dupree, assistant professor of organizational behavior at Yale SOM, white liberals tend to downplay their own verbal competence in exchanges with racial minorities, compared to how other white Americans act in such exchanges. The study is scheduled for publication in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.”
“Compared to how other white Americans act in such exchanges” = in contrast to non-liberals, i.e. conservatives and moderates.
“Dupree and her co-author, Susan Fiske of Princeton University, began by analyzing the words used in campaign speeches delivered by Democratic and Republican presidential candidates to different audiences over the years. They scanned 74 speeches delivered by white candidates over a 25-year period. Approximately half were addressed to mostly-minority audiences—at a Hispanic small business roundtable discussion or a black church, for example. They then paired each speech delivered to a mostly-minority audience with a comparable speech delivered at a mostly-white audience—at a mostly-white church or university, for example. The researchers analyzed the text of these speeches for two measures: words related to competence (that is, words about ability or status, such as “assertive” or “competitive”) and words related to warmth (that is, words about friendliness, such as “supportive” and “compassionate”).
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’t 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.”
The researchers didn’t stop with politicians. They even studied everyday white liberals, just normal people in day-to-day situations:
“They designed a series of experiments in which white participants were asked to respond to a hypothetical or presumed-real interaction partner. For half of these participants, their partner was given a stereotypically white name (such as “Emily”); for the other half, their partner was given a stereotypically black name (such as “Lakisha”). Participants were asked to select from a list of words for an email to their partner. For some studies, this email was for a work-related task; for others, this email was simply to introduce themselves. Each word had been previously scored on how warm or competent it appears. The word “sad,” for example, scored low for both warmth and competence. “Melancholy,” on the other hand, scored high for competence and low on warmth.
Here’s the key finding:
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.”
Dupree and Fiske suspect that the behavior stems from a liberal person’s desire to connect with other races. One possible reason for the “competence downshift,” as the authors describe it, is that, regardless of race, people tend to downplay their competence when they want to appear likeable and friendly. But it’s also possible that “this is happening because people are using common stereotypes in an effort to get along,” Dupree says.”
So when white liberals talk to black people, they just automatically assume black people are dumb and can’t handle Big Words.
White liberals have the Savior Complex. They believe minorities are so incompetent and inferior and stunted that they require benevolent white liberals to get by.
Most conservatives are probably not surprised at all by this, of course. I’ve been saying for a while that white liberals, with their “soft bigotry of low expectations,” are the most racist people of all.
White liberals don’t view minorities as equals. It’s technically a white supremacist mindset, but in their view it’s different because they feel bad about it.
Black conservatives like Walter Williams have been pointing this out for years:
“Andrew Kenny says that whites treat blacks like animals. When a dog misbehaves, we don’t blame the dog; we blame the owner for improper training. In Africa, when blacks behave badly, Kenny says colonialism, imperialism, apartheid, globalization or multi-nationalism is blamed for not bringing up blacks properly. Liberals saw South Africa’s, apartheid and other human rights abuses as unjust because blacks were suffering at the hands of whites. They hold whites accountable to civilized standards of behavior. Blacks are not held to civilized standards of behavior. From the liberal’s point of view it might even be racist to expect blacks to adhere to civilized standards of behavior.”
Interestingly enough, the Yale Study was published on November 15, almost two weeks ago. Are you surprised you’re only now hearing about it, and that the Democratic media basically ignored it? Me neither.
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On a somewhat related note, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this:
