- Between weeks 8 and 12, each student should provide a weekly reflection (500 words) on the data you have collected to date.
- What data did you collect?
- What is your initial impression of the data?
- How have the data you have collected this week changed/progressed your thinking about your research project?
- What challenges did you encounter while collecting the data?
- What are your next steps?
This week I primarily focused on a GenForward survey conducted in October 2017 that measured a representative sample of millennial attitudes on race in America. This study examined a number of important topics including the distribution of power among racial groups, impressions of levels of discrimination, contemporary movements and protests including Black Lives Matter and the recent prominence of white supremacy groups, perceptions of whiteness and racial resentment, and ways to engender racial progress. In addition, I started to explore the factors driving white millennial support for President Donald Trump. Some of the difficulties I found in this research included focusing on the most relevant aspects of the GenForward survey, since it covers a wide array of issues, and finding articles that explain the factors behind white millennial support of Trump, rather than those that talk about the election more generally.
Inspecting the results of the GenForward survey demonstrates how whites understanding of race differ from the attitudes of the respondents of color. I will include some examples to highlight this difference. Firstly, white millennials were the only respondents who included a positive emotion to describe their emotions toward President Trump’s election and presidency. Whites were almost evenly split regarding whether they considered Donald Trump to be racist, unlike blacks who overwhelmingly believed that President Trump is racist. A plurality of white respondents viewed Black Lives Matter to be a movement composed of racists holding invalid ideas. In addition, more than half of whites agreed that “white nationalist groups are not very different from groups that comprise the Black Lives Matter Movement.” Furthermore, this study exposed nuances in white millennial opinions based on whether they were Trump voters. This study demonstrates how white millennials are “quickly becoming the outlier group in this generation” (GenForward Survey). I am still unpacking all the data and figures of this study but it is evident that there is a sharp disconnect between white and black millennial attitudes on race in America today.
After scrutinizing the results in the GenForward survey, I started to research the factors underlying why white millennials conceptualize race distinctly than people of color. The research I have conducted so far point to white vulnerability, racial resentment, and cultural anxiety. One of the specific articles I examined found that millennials who supported Trump believed in the idea of white vulnerability. This concept revolves around the notion that whites are losing their place in society out of no fault of their own. This study discovered that racial resentment is the primary driver of this feeling of white vulnerability. Employment and income were negligible in fueling this white vulnerability. I think it may be difficult to juggle and synthesize all the research out there explaining why white millennials supported Trump. For this reason, I intend to dedicate a lot of next week combing through journal articles on white voting behavior and white vulnerability.
This data affirms my hypothesis that although the millennial generation might be heralded as the most progressive and tolerant generation in history, this acclaim may not apply to all members of this generation equally. Specifically, there is important nuance and complexities in how whites understand and conceptualize race in America that must be unearthed. I aim to continue unpacking data from both the GenForward study and voting behavior statistics, while also exploring the motivations undergirding white millennial understanding of race. I also hope to connect the GenForward survey results to research unpacking the motivations behind white millennial support for Donald Trump.
Teddy,
Your research is off to a fantastic start. Your findings from the GenForward Survey are not all that surprising, and you are doing a great job considering some of the key differences between how whites and blacks understand race and racial power.
A direction you might also consider (that I am not sure is available in the literature, and therefore you can make a big contribution), is how racial attitudes may shape how whites and blacks conceptualize “racism.” As a social system, sociologists tend to define racism as power arising from differential advantages/disadvantages conferred on the basis of race. By that basis, blacks and other communities of color cannot be racist (although they can be both prejudiced or discriminatory) because they are not in a position to benefit from race. However, these findings suggest that whites are finding that the system is increasingly stacked against them, that blacks are beginning to benefit from a social system as a form of racial correction, and therefore, are labeling black movements as “racist.” I think this perhaps arises from an increasing diversification of institutions like education, where white students often see blacks on equal footing.
This is all to say that I think you could use these data to theorize on how white millennials are attempting to reconceptualize racism as a social system. I would be curious to see how whites define the terms, and how white fragility plays into these ideas.
A great start! I can’t wait to read more about it.