How Can We Assess Racism?

In a recent discussion on another topic, the matter of how science can measure racism came up. The issue was raised in the context of our president arguably being racist, but what about some or maybe most of his followers? Some social science data indicated that social unease, not racism per se or economic concerns was the main factor in Trump's election. This comment started a discussion on how to think about racism as a complex matter of biology and overt behavior: It is more complex than that. For most affected folks, it's not racism per se. It is fear-unease about demographic and social changes (which includes a race component, but not necessarily racism), America's shifting global military and economic dominance, etc.

A response to that was expressed as follows:

"Demographic and social changes" is code for racism, full stop. I realize you think it's more complex than that, but when has this ever been used in a way that did not straightforwardly equate to saying "whites are afraid of their new status as a non-majority?" Nothing you say here suggests any other meaning. Nothing I have ever seen or heard has ever made a meaningful distinction between whatever complexities are supposed to accompany this and racism.

Assuming for the moment that I'm right in this regard, then what does it mean to say that for "affected folks" are motivated by the gradual dissolution of white political dominance except that whites are motivated by racism?

If whites are motivated by racism, then why should any of the politics of the post civil rights era have been possible? Why should lax immigration policies - legal or otherwise - have been allowed to continue for so long? More to the point: why should this sudden concern about a trend which is literally decades old suddenly manifest in a way which is so plainly coincident with economic crises for working class white males, who've suffered more and recovered less over the long run from the financial crisis than any other demographic group? ( And for that matter, why is it that this fact is so rarely acknowledged? )

That led to this: One paper that influenced my thinking made these comments: “Results do not support an interpretation of the election based on pocketbook economic concerns. Instead, the shorter relative distance of people’s own views from the Republican candidate on trade and China corresponded to greater mass support for Trump in 2016 relative to Mitt Romney in 2012. Candidate preferences in 2016 reflected increasing anxiety among high-status groups rather than complaints about past treatment among low-status groups. Both growing domestic racial diversity and globalization contributed to a sense that white Americans are under siege by these engines of change.”

Trump and other authoritarians are playing on those sentiments by fomenting all sorts of bigotry including racism.

Which led to this:  The question is whether or not their actions are racist, or in other words whether or not they are holding certain races to different standards. The answer to that question is unambiguously "yes". Chanting "Jews will not replace us" is an example of racism, though in this case primarily a sinister, if veiled, threat.

Assuming that the flawed logic Dr. Mutz applies is representative, the flaw that she and some other social scientists are making is an important category mistake. The mistake is believing and arguing that the kind of data involved here allows one one to dissect and establish a cause and effect relationship between one or more psychological states (conscious or not) and causes of behavior.
In this case, the observations of behavior that one can call 'consistent with racism' can arise from multiple causes including 'social unease' over impending demographic change, economic complaints or pressures, actual racism and maybe other psychological states the data is not designed to detect.

Exactly. Treating racism as the original cause of all this is closed minded, and it literally denies the principle of sufficient reason, a bedrock principle of scientific endeavor. We must ask ourselves what the underlying causes of racism are, and in this regard the Civil War era yields many lessons.

I generally agree here, too. I do disagree with the term "actual racism", however, since the only distinguishable feature of racism is how the racist treats other races, not what they think. Since I disagree with the idea that racism is a phenomenon without its own ulterior reasons, I can agree that the causes for it might be disparate, but I cannot agree with the idea that a given cause makes the resulting behavior any more actualized.

It's important to bear in mind the reasons why we're having this conversation, why we're trying to understand what motivates contemporary white racism. I hope my example of the heart attack and anxiety treatments makes this clear: we cannot expect that a mismatched treatment will successfully cure the patient - quite the opposite, in fact. The purpose of this inquiry is to identify an effective strategy to combat white racism.

In my view, clamping down on speech, whether dark or not, is not helpful in the long run. Suppression of shared ideologies no longer works in our computerized, connected social networks, and I think some sort of eruption will happen sooner or later, and its opponents will be less aware of it, and therefore less prepared, than they should be. HRC's campaign is an object lesson in this regard.

I think material explanations are more useful than psychological ones, not least in part because the former can help explain the latter, but the latter cannot explain the former. This does offer the possibility of a causal relationship being established which can be empirically tested. We can ask, for example, if racist behavior becomes more widespread or severe during periods of economic prosperity. Yes, this too is only a correlation, but unlike correlating psychological causes it suggests a course of action, an experimental strategy for mitigating racism. Similarly, we can test the explanation from social unease, and its relationship to racist behavior and economic status. At a first approximation we can ask ourselves how economic prosperity might affect social unease and/or mobility, etc.

The answers to these questions, the results of these tests will offer a much more effective strategy than merely stating the symptoms will.
                                                                                                                                                  

It seems reasonable to believe that racist behavior can arise from different mental or emotional states, including fear, feelings of unease over economic pressures and demographic changes. Although mental states can be detected in various ways, it isn't clear that (1) there is a single mental cause for observed overt behavior that appears to be racism, or (2) that science can accurately measure mental cause and effect at present.

The discussion included an assertion that "clamping down on speech, whether dark or not, is not helpful in the long run," seems contradicted by current cognitive science belief about politics, this for example about how the mind processes incoming information:

The first step is automatic, uncontrollable unconscious processing, which occurs in less than one second. In this mode of thinking, unconscious feelings precede and shape conscious thinking before we are aware that this has happened. 

The available evidence reveals this first step is heavily biased if the information is contrary to personal beliefs, morals and social identity. In those situations, unconscious processing distorts information to make it more acceptable to the person’s pre-existing beliefs, morals and identity. Information that confirms pre-existing beliefs, morals and identity, even if it is false, tends to be uncritically accepted as true.

Thus, whether we like it, or accept it or not, our brains respond emotionally and judges incoming information before we are aware of it. Racism can arise from that. So can fear and other emotional responses.

With no exceptions that I can recall, all the Trump supporters I have dealt with over the years forcefully claim they are not racist. Does their support for an arguably racist leader make them racist? With no exceptions that I can recall, all of them forcefully deny that Trump is a racist. Should we care what their mental state is and just look at overt behaviors and make judgments on that basis alone? What is fair here? What is possible in practice? How much can science say about this without a solid basis in probative empirical data?