The conclusion is correct (graduate degree holding white men believe the most 'taboo' conspiracy theories), but the reasons it suggests why, are sociology-babble garbage. The real reason is:
Racism is a lie. To believe in racism, you must believe a set of easily debunkable lies.
Richer, whiter, maler, more educated populations are not less racist, despite attempts to twist stats to say this. They're more racist.
Fundamentally, white folk in the US do not believe the lived experience of Black folk. When millions of Black folk say that they are being mistreated by the police, white folk don't believe it. They need to see it for themselves, to be able to say "Oh my God the Black people were telling the truth this whole time!" 10 seconds of smartphone footage is more believable than decades of testimony from 40 million people.
@mekkaokereke White women are “finding out” in a parallel context now, as they see the anti-abortionists coming for their infertility treatments. Only then did the whole roadmap start getting their attention.
@mekkaokereke One thing that strikes me here is how little white people ever hear that testimony directly. Twitter was the first time I heard the frank, unmediated thoughts from a wide variety of black people. Over time it really changed my perception of many things about American society. But I had to seek it out.
@williampietri@mekkaokereke That is true. For me, it was Facebook and not Twitter, but without social media, I’d still be compacently ignorant about the level of violence and structural inequality directed at Black folks.
In truth, with most white folks living in self-segregated housing and exposed only to white-dominated media, even without the willful lies of sources like Fox, we’re insanely ignorant of perspectives other than our own—which we call “objective.”
@williampietri@mekkaokereke I've had similar experiences. And this is one of the major reasons why Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter was such a tragedy, and why white people should realize that there are actually legitimate reasons for some people to remain there.
@mekkaokereke problem with the US police :racist and armed; Growing up in inner London they used to stop and search us all for drugs & being unarmed they were less of a threat -though you soon learn that they don’t like sarcasm.
By the age of 18 I had no trust in the Metropolitan police -and now whenever I hear about another Met Police scandal I view it as a “breakthrough story” rather than new
The shock for me was moving to the Edinburgh and their Polis actually being pleasant
Growing up in England and the US, the absolute worst I was ever treated by the police in the UK, was on par with the absolute best I was ever treated by US police.
My anecdotes are not data, but that's my experience, and my experience matches the data.
UK police kill about two people a year. They'd have to be closer to 2 a week to match US numbers.
@mekkaokereke our population is about 1/5 of the US. It’s death during police chases that kills, along with those in custody -that’s the one which doesn’t get enough attention
@mekkaokereke one difference I should highlight is now that I’ve become respectable and middle class I get left alone. Whereas “driving an expensive car while black” is viewed by The Met as a sign you are a successful criminal and should be stopped and searched.
Yes there's a lot of scholarship on the relationship between being racist and believing more conspiracy theories. No I'm not going to go dig it all up for you, because it's Sunday and I'm lazy. And because you know what I'm saying is true.
You know that Fox News watchers were so much more likely to believe both covid conspiracy theories, and election conspiracy theories. They've been happily inbibing racist lies about Black folk for decades. They made themselves truth resistant. 🤷🏿♂️
@mekkaokereke This makes so much sense. Fundamentally, racism is ignorance. A person given to racism is ignorant by definition. Such a person is therefore also more likely to accept OTHER ideas they have trouble understanding or don't know enough to refute.
@mekkaokereke The tendency to disbelieve black narratives wouldn't be there without racism.
Wish white people would more often ask themselves exactly why they think the black person is lying, and how it would feel to have that logic applied to a white person.
That headline set off alarm bells, then I realized the conclusion was "graduate degreed white men are the real kooks", so I stood down, because, well, it's true
... But I didn't read the actual paper and am so mad that they never called out the obvious cause; basically "because mixing racism and patriarchy makes a hell of a speedball"
There are some conjectures on small data here, but the big question in my mind is how did they get so many *chan users in their sample(s)?
If rich, white, double-degree men in the US both go to church a lot and read *chan a lot, then that's definitely a disturbing combo. Either venue can be a vector for conspiracy injection.
One issue for society is assuming education teaches logic and protects from gullibility.
I wish they had measured evidence-free belief too.
I think that *chan users are the tip of the iceberg here, & only the most obvious of a much more widespread phenomenon
A lot of supremacist beliefs are right below the surface in your average white suburbanite, especially in the "business owner" / "regional franchise manager" upper middle class "petty tyrant" professional cadre.
Just look at, eg, who steps up to oppose public transportation or bike lanes, or to grumble on local talk radio about "those people"
My take is that they believe the circle jerk theory. If you work hard, you are successful. I can see people who I am better off than, so I must be working hard. This fulfills what my hard working parents told me about the Puritan work ethic ( ignore that most of them starved to death).
The people who are not as successful merely need to work harder, like those rich guys on TV say.
The fact that it’s bullshit would destroy their world.
@mekkaokereke The interview seemed to do a decent job of poking at the research. The interviewer pointed out, for instance, the Tuskegee experiments. I'd love to see more details of the master's degree conspiracy cluster, though I'm willing to bet my assumptions about majors (technical, MBA, law, not liberal arts), political party (duh), demographics of where they live. But I greatly doubt I'd be surprised by any of it.
Good question, but the answer was complete trash, and the interviewer let the researcher off the hook. Again, the researcher compared Black folk believing that the government intentionally gave Black folk syphilis (a factual thing that happened), with white folk believing that Sandy Hook was paid government actors (Alex Jones nonsense).
These two types of beliefs are not at all related.
Trying to understand why so many white folk believe in Q without saying racism, is silly
@mekkaokereke I just skimmed, and I read it differently. Black folks not trusting medical professionals because of the reality of their mistreatment was totally valid - BUT their belief was based on things they knew to be true because of word of mouth among their trusted contacts. Sandy Hook deniers aren't believing the TRUTH - but they're trusting THEIR trusted contacts over mainstream media.
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