Perceptions, distorted realities and social-political indoctrination
YouGovAmerica
Americans overestimate the size of minority groups and underestimate the size of most majority groups.
When it comes to estimating the size of demographic groups,
Americans rarely get it right. In two recent YouGov polls, we asked respondents
to guess the percentage (ranging from 0% to 100%) of American adults who are
members of 43 different groups, including racial and religious groups, as well
as other less frequently studied groups, such as pet owners and those who are
left-handed.
When people’s average perceptions of group sizes are compared to actual population estimates, an intriguing pattern emerges: Americans tend to vastly overestimate the size of minority groups. This holds for sexual minorities, including the proportion of gays and lesbians (estimate: 30%, true: 3%), bisexuals (estimate: 29%, true: 4%), and people who are transgender (estimate: 21%, true: 0.6%).
It also applies to religious minorities, such as Muslim Americans (estimate: 27%, true: 1%) and Jewish Americans (estimate: 30%, true: 2%). And we find the same sorts of overestimates for racial and ethnic minorities, such as Native Americans (estimate: 27%, true: 1%), Asian Americans (estimate: 29%, true: 6%), and Black Americans (estimate: 41%, true: 12%).
Link: YouGov poll - Demographic groups
The left is warping America’s view of itself
On average, the respondents estimate that 41
per cent of their countrymen are black, when the real figure is 12 per cent.
More astonishingly, black Americans believe that 52 per cent of the country is
also black. Respondents think America’s population is 29 per cent Asian (true:
6 per cent), 39 per cent Hispanic (true: 17 per cent), and 27 per cent Native
American (true: 1 per cent). Those guesstimates add up to an arithmetically
impossible 136 per cent (but then, no one ever loses money betting on the
lousiness of Americans’ mathematical skills) —and that includes zero white
people.
The headline on this survey might have read:
“Americans believe whites in the US have been subject to total genocide and
don’t seem especially bothered”. Although the correct proportion is 14 per
cent, first-generation immigrants believe that 40 per cent of the country’s
adults are fellow new arrivals (non-immigrants put the number at 31 per cent),
which might still seem instinctively on the low side to anyone who has recently
visited New York. Speaking of which, survey subjects suppose that 30 per cent
of the country lives in New York City —meaning 100 million people, which might
explain why the traffic is so terrible. But then, they also think 30 per cent
of their compatriots live in Texas and 32 per cent live in California, which
would leave the rest of the country nearly depopulated. Plenty more room for
more immigrants, then.
While Britain’s Muslim community is widely
regarded as substantial (4.3 per cent of the population —though a bit smaller
than you thought?), Americans imagine their Muslim community is proportionally
over six times bigger at 27 per cent (true: 1 per cent). Americans also believe
30 per cent of their country is Jewish (true: 2 per cent).
Do Americans expect to die off? Survey subjects
reckon that 30 per cent of Americans are gay or lesbian (true: 3 per cent) and
21 per cent are transgender (true: 0.6 per cent); that is, Americans
overestimate the transgender population of the US by a factor of 35. This
sample therefore imagines that over half the country is unlikely to reproduce
by the standard means, which would imply a pending demographic collapse. We had
definitely better import more of those immigrants, then, but only if they’re up
for having sex.
Oh, and 30 per cent of the US would seem to be
vegan or vegetarian, although the real figure is 5 per cent. As for money, it’s
hard to say whether the conviction that 20 per cent of Americans make at least
$1 million per year derives from envy or optimism (the true number is so minute
that it rounds to zero).
What are we to make of these figures, aside
from the fact that more Americans should subscribe to Population and
Development Review?
For once, not that Yanks are thick. To the
contrary, these statistics reflect with remarkable accuracy the exaggerated
concerns of the American left and the distorting degree to which they’re
magnified in the mainstream media. America’s “paper of record” was already
engaged in widespread journalistic affirmative action before the watershed of
George Floyd. But those in particular who have read The New York Times for the
past two years would quite logically assume that 41 per cent of the United
States is black. Why, after relentless daily coverage of black chefs, black
architects, black curators, black actors, directors and playwrights, black CEOs
and politicians, an innocent from outer space would sensibly conclude that this
newspaper is covering a country whose entire population is black. You’ll find
the same racially skewed coverage in The Washington Post and a range of trendy
magazines.
These patterns show no sign of flagging.
Likewise post-Floyd, the PBS ‘News Hour’ has filled its end-of-programme arts
slot, Canvas, almost exclusively with minority visual artists, musicians and
writers; in the rare instance the guests are white, they’re usually gay. I
watch the NewsHour nightly on YouTube, and I cannot remember the last straight
white person interviewed in that slot. Meanwhile, American adverts are
consistently shot with majority-minority casts. Yet if Madison Avenue truly
wanted their promotions to mirror today’s American population, two-thirds of
the actors selling corn-removal kits would be white.
That YouGov survey is testimony to how
completely the American left has colonised the country’s mainstream sources of
information and set the national agenda. The preoccupations of progressives
loom overly large to ordinary Americans because these topics dominate the
content of streaming services, news programmes, documentaries, print media and
films: veganism and vegetarianism, homosexuality and transgenderism, the
glories of immigration, and the contributions and concerns of racial, religious
and sexual minorities. Thus those survey subjects quite rationally believe that
one in five Americans make $1 million or more per year, because progressives
never stop nattering about income inequality and the plethora of evil
billionaires who don’t pay taxes.
And why wouldn’t most Americans assume that
two-thirds of their countrymen live in New York and California? Only their
political elite numbering a good 200 million strong could possibly explain why
educated Democrats on the coasts successfully control the entire country’s
cultural output. Indeed, the picture that emerges from that YouGov poll
resembles Saul Steinberg’s classic New Yorker cover from 1976, “View of the World
from Ninth Avenue”. Except instead of the tall buildings of Ninth and Tenth
Avenues dwarfing a little scratchy patch of green off in the distance that
represents the rest of the country, LGBTQIA+ and BLM tower in the foreground,
while off on the horizon inconsequential scribbles such as $30 trillion of
national debt, 8.5 per cent inflation and a soaring murder rate are barely
discernible.
Yet one thing that survey fails to document is
a country whose majority native population is persistently “white supremacist”.
A racist white majority bent on perpetuating their “privilege” would naturally
overestimate the degree of their continued proportional dominance. Instead, the
majority of YouGov respondents suppose percentages of minorities so bloated
that there’s no statistical room left for white Americans at all.
Band-wagoning on US obsessions, the British
mainstream media impose the same left-wing distortions on the UK. British
adverts are chocka with minority actors, while British dramas tend to beatify sympathetic
white characters by putting them in mixed-race relationships. No harm done, of
course, but the cast of Bridgerton does not accurately reflect the population
of the country, which is 86 per cent white.
Recently I heard of an encounter between a statistician and a black psychotherapist who was consternated that only 3 per cent of his profession in Britain is black. But, er, the statistician pointed out, only 3 per cent of the UK is black. Bet you didn’t know that. Bet you thought that number was way, way higher. ■
Comments
Post a Comment