Who's Most Racist?

The Wall Street journal reported recently on a Rasmussen Poll of racial attitudes among whites and blacks in the U.S. which came up with some interesting findings. Before discussing these I should note that I have concerns about the wording in the poll. The word "racism" isn't defined which I think is a major flaw, and I don't like that respondents were asked what "most whites/blacks" think since no one can really know what most people in a large group think, but having said that, let's look at what the WSJ reports:

There is a huge ideological difference on this topic. Among conservative Americans, 49% consider most blacks racist, and only 12% see most whites that way. Among liberal voters, 27% see most white Americans as racist, and 21% say the same about black Americans.

Among white adults generally, 10% think most white Americans are racist; 38% believe most blacks are racist, and 17% say most Hispanics are racist.

I wasn't surprised by this result, although I don't think it's fair to say that "most" blacks are racist. I do think it's fair, however, to say that most of the serious racism in this country today resides in the black community, which is a different claim. What did surprise me, however, as it did the writers at the WSJ, was this stat:

Among black Americans, 31% think most blacks are racist, while 24% consider most whites racist and 15% view most Hispanics that way.

In other words, it's the majority view in the black community that there's more racism there than there is in the white community. Here's what the WSJ said about this:

But the results for blacks are a big surprise. Blacks are more likely (by 7 percentage points) to think most blacks are racist than to think most whites are. Moreover, they are 11 points likelier than liberals (regardless of race) to think most blacks are racist, and 9 points likelier than Democrats. And blacks are 3 points less likely than liberals to think most whites are racist.

Their conclusion is, in my opinion, exactly right:

All of which suggests that the people likeliest to believe most whites are racist and most blacks are not are those who are both liberal and white. Which reinforces a point we've made often in this column: that a lot of what drives the futile debate over race in America is white liberals' psychological need to feel morally superior to other whites.

I'm not a psychologist and am only offering my hunch on this, but I think there's truth in what the WSJ concludes. Much (certainly not all) of the moral posturing, whether about race, immigration, education, environment, war, or whatever, that we find among those on the left is animated not by logic, reason, or experience but rather by a deep-seated need to reinforce their feeling of moral superiority over other whites. It's the same need that causes some liberals, particularly in the academy, to affirm their intellectual superiority by haughtily deriding the "superstitions," religious or political, of other whites.

On the other hand, the patronizing, condescending manner in which they often treat blacks is evidence that they already feel superior to them, of course, although they'd never admit it.