Are Americans less likely to reply to emails from Black people relative to White people?

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (52) ◽  
pp. e2110347118
Author(s):  
Ray Block ◽  
Charles Crabtree ◽  
John B. Holbein ◽  
J. Quin Monson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Black People ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
The United States ◽  
Simple Task ◽  
The Public ◽  
Medical Sector ◽  
Large Scale Field ◽  
Ethnic Subgroups

In this article, we present the results from a large-scale field experiment designed to measure racial discrimination among the American public. We conducted an audit study on the general public—sending correspondence to 250,000 citizens randomly drawn from public voter registration lists. Our within-subjects experimental design tested the public’s responsiveness to electronically delivered requests to volunteer their time to help with completing a simple task—taking a survey. We randomized whether the request came from either an ostensibly Black or an ostensibly White sender. We provide evidence that in electronic interactions, on average, the public is less likely to respond to emails from people they believe to be Black (rather than White). Our results give us a snapshot of a subtle form of racial bias that is systemic in the United States. What we term everyday or “paper cut” discrimination is exhibited by all racial/ethnic subgroups—outside of Black people themselves—and is present in all geographic regions in the United States. We benchmark paper cut discrimination among the public to estimates of discrimination among various groups of social elites. We show that discrimination among the public occurs more frequently than discrimination observed among elected officials and discrimination in higher education and the medical sector but simultaneously, less frequently than discrimination in housing and employment contexts. Our results provide a window into the discrimination that Black people in the United States face in day-to-day interactions with their fellow citizens.

scholarly journals The Effect of Governmental Health Measures on Public Behaviour During the COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guoyan Wang ◽  
Li Li ◽  
Lingfei Wang ◽  
Zhi Xu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
New York State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Average Score ◽  
Phase Rule ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Epidemic Area

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in radical changes in many aspects of life. To deal with this, each country has implemented continuous health measures from the beginning of the outbreak. Discovering how governmental actions impacted public behaviour during the outbreak stage is the purpose of this study. Methods: This study uses a hybrid large-scale data visualisation method to analyse public behaviour (epidemic concerns, self-protection, and mobility trends), using the data provided by multiple authorities. Meanwhile, a content analysis method is used to qualitatively code the health measures of three countries with severe early epidemic outbreaks from different continents, namely China, Italy, and the United States. Eight dimensions are coded to rate the mobility restrictions implemented in the above countries. Results: (1) Governmental measures did not immediately persuade the public to change their behaviours during the COVID-19 epidemic. Instead, the public behaviour proceeded in a three-phase rule, which is typically witnessed in an epidemic outbreak, namely the wait-and-see phase, the surge phase and the slow-release phase. (2) The strictness of the mobility restrictions of the three countries can be ranked as follows: Hubei Province in China (with an average score of 8.5 out of 10), Lombardy in Italy (7.125), and New York State in the United States (5.375). Strict mobility restrictions are more likely to cause a surge of population outflow from the epidemic area in the short term, whereas the effect of mobility restrictions is positively related to the stringency of policies in the long term. Conclusion: The public showed generally lawful behaviour during regional epidemic outbreaks and blockades. Meanwhile public behaviour was deeply affected by the actions of local governments, rather than the global pandemic situation. The contextual differences between the various countries are important factors that influence the effects of the different governments’ health measures.

Preparing for Agroterror: How is the Texas Animal Health Commission Implementing Federal Food Security Regulations?

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Hunter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Agricultural Industry ◽  
The Public ◽  
Department Of Health

AbstractAgroterrorism is a subform of bioterrorism with the potential to have a crippling impact on both the agricultural industry and the food supply of a nation. A calculated attack using a miniscule amount of pathogenic or disease causing substances on the livestock or crops in one rural community can spread to animals and metropolitan regions much farther away long before any response from state or federal veterinary or agricultural organizations. Although there have been no large-scale agroterrorism attacks in the United States, there have been historical precedents for agricultural biological warfare and recent examples of unintentional or accidental spread of pathogens in the food supply that have threatened the health and safety of the public. Along with an ongoing push for preparedness to prevent a biological attack on the U.S. agricultural industry, there is a great deal of uncertainty and conflict among landowners, farmers, analysts, and politicians about what methods should be implemented to safeguard the public. In response to this possible threat, the United States government has implemented legislation that it considers preemptive in its ability to safeguard the food supply and manage the public health and/or biological crime response in a widespread agroterrorist attack scenario. However, this requires cooperation on both the state and federal levels, and of several agencies including the department of Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Health and Human Services. This paper examines the steps being taken by the USDA in fulfilling the orders of the federal government in response to the looming threat of agroterrorism and how the TAHC works cooperatively with federal agencies and the private agricultural industry to carry out these regulations.

scholarly journals Reappraisals of the Academy Movement

2001 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Tolley ◽  
Nancy Beadie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public High Schools ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Educational Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
History Of

The presence of academies in the United States spans roughly three centuries. Originating in the colonial era, academies spread across the country by mid-nineteenth century. Such institutions generally served students between the ages of eight and twenty-five, providing a relatively advanced form of schooling that was legally incorporated to ensure financial support beyond that available through tuition alone. According to one contemporary source, by 1850 more than 6,100 incorporated academies existed in the United States, with enrollments nine times greater than those of the nation's colleges. Nineteenth-century supporters portrayed academies as exemplars of the nation's commitment to enlightenment and learning; opponents argued that they were harmful to the public interest. Those in favor of a large-scale system of public high schools dismissed academies as irrelevant and outmoded institutions. The culmination of this controversy is well known, because it is reiterated in every secondary text on the history of American education. As a widespread system of public higher schooling supplanted the academies in the twentieth century, private and independent schools dropped out of the mainstream of American educational discourse. The following essays seek to recover something of the long history of academies in the United States and to reconsider the historical significance of these institutions in society.

scholarly journals How Large Is the “Public Domain”? A Comparative Analysis of Ringer’s 1961 Copyright Renewal Study and HathiTrust CRMS Data

2017 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Wilkin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Determination Process ◽  
Review Management ◽  
The U.S

The 1961 Copyright Office study on renewals, authored by Barbara Ringer, has cast an outsized influence on discussions of the U.S. 1923–1963 public domain. As more concrete data emerge from initiatives such as the large-scale determination process in the Copyright Review Management System (CRMS) project, questions are raised about the reliability or meaning of the Ringer data. A closer examination of both the Ringer study and CRMS data demonstrates fundamental misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the Ringer data, as well as possible methodological issues. Estimates of the size of the corpus of public domain books published in the United States from 1923 through 1963 have been inflated by problematic assumptions, and we should be able to correct mistaken conclusions with reasonable effort.

scholarly journals Who Are the Homeless? Centering Anti-Black Racism and the Consequences of Colorblind Homeless Policies

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 340
Author(s):  
Earl James Edwards
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Homeless Population ◽  
Public Identity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Persona

Since first becoming a major social issue in the 1980s, homelessness has been a racialized problem in the United States. Its disproportionate impact on Black Americans is primarily driven by structural racism and the limited housing and employment opportunities for Black Americans. The first major federal legislation to address the needs of the United States’ homeless population—the Stewart B. McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 omitted the root causes of Black housing instability, thereby proving ineffective at mitigating Black homelessness. As a result, Black Americans remain disproportionately impacted today. In addition to being neglected by the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act, Black men and women experiencing homelessness are more likely to be discriminated against than any other racial group. For example, Black men are more likely to be arrested than anyone else, and Black women are the most likely to experience hyper-surveillance. This paper uses the Public Identity Framework to argue that in the 1980s, advocates and opponents of homeless legislation created two contradictory public personas to shape public discourse and policies for the homeless. A colorblind public persona was used to pass the McKinney–Vento Homeless Act; meanwhile, the public persona of the “underclass” was used to criminalize and shame the homeless. Both personas operated concurrently to create a dual public identity for the homeless that influenced policy and ultimately harmed Black people.

scholarly journals Racial bias confrontation in the United States: What (if anything) has changed in the COVID-19 era, and where do we go from here?

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-269
Author(s):  
Christopher K. Marshburn ◽  
Abigail M. Folberg ◽  
Chelsea Crittle ◽  
Keith B. Maddox
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
The United States ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
The Us ◽  
Current Article

Contemporary racial inequities rooted in historically biased systems (e.g., policing) have largely been confronted by those directly affected. We argue, however, that the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic created a context that led many White Americans to recognize the direct impact that systems and structures have on individuals – particularly in the case of systemic anti-Black racism. This recognition was accompanied by large-scale confrontation actions (in the form of mass protests) throughout the US. The current article uses the Confronting Prejudiced Responses (CPR) model to outline conditions that fostered White Americans’ shift in awareness surrounding racial inequity and the consequences of this perception change. Furthermore, we describe how reactions to confrontation efforts may depend on the messenger, message, modality and audience. Finally, we provide recommendations for individuals and organizations to support confrontation efforts aimed at reducing biased behavior and policies.

Public Expressions of Empathy and Sympathy by U.S. Criminal Justice Officials After Controversial Police Killings of African-Americans

2021 ◽  
pp. 0261927X2110572
Author(s):  
Edward R. Maguire ◽  
Howard Giles
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Police Department ◽  
The United States ◽  
Police Use Of Force ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Releases

Police use of force against minorities, particularly African-Americans, has become a prominent national issue in the United States. In a number of controversial instances, such as the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, African-Americans have died under questionable circumstances due to police use of force. These incidents have fueled the growth of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and have often resulted in large-scale protests and riots. In this paper, we examine statements made by four types of criminal justice officials – police executives, police department spokespersons, police union representatives, and prosecutors – in the immediate aftermath of 30 such incidents that occurred in 2020. We examine the language used by these officials in social media postings, news releases, and press conferences, focusing specifically on the extent to which they express empathy or sympathy toward the decedent or his or her loved ones, as well as the community at large. Our analysis reveals that criminal justice officials rarely express empathy or sympathy in the aftermath of these incidents, though there are noteworthy differences between different types of officials. Our findings are helpful for understanding how the language used by these officials, particularly the public expression of empathy and sympathy, fits into broader debates about race and criminal justice in the United States.

The Fallacy of Democratic Elitism: Elite Competition and Commitment to Civil Liberties

1991 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul M. Sniderman ◽  
Joseph F. Fletcher ◽  
Peter H. Russell ◽  
Philip E. Tetlock ◽  
Brian J. Gaines
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mass Public

Since the seminal studies of Stouffer and McClosky it has become accepted that political elites are markedly more committed to civil liberties and democratic values than is the public at large; so much so that political elites should be recognized, in McClosky's words, as ‘the major repositories of the public conscience and as carriers of the Creed’. The argument of this article is that previous analyses have erred by focusing on the contrast between elites taken as a whole and the mass public. The crucial contrast is not between elites and citizens, but rather between groups of elites that are competing one with another for political power.Drawing on large-scale surveys of two modern democracies, Canada and the United States, this article demonstrates that differences among elites in support for civil liberties eclipse, both in size and political significance, differences between elites and citizens. The fallacy of democratic elitism, as this study shows, is its indifference to which elites prevail in the electoral competition for power.

Quality Control of Data in a Large-Scale Cancer Register Program

1966 ◽  
Vol 05 (02) ◽  
pp. 67-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. I. Lourie ◽  
W. Haenszeland
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Quality Control ◽  
Cancer Patients ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Newly Diagnosed ◽  
Related Data ◽  
Cancer Register ◽  
Independent Review ◽  
End Results

Quality control of data collected in the United States by the Cancer End Results Program utilizing punchcards prepared by participating registries in accordance with a Uniform Punchcard Code is discussed. Existing arrangements decentralize responsibility for editing and related data processing to the local registries with centralization of tabulating and statistical services in the End Results Section, National Cancer Institute. The most recent deck of punchcards represented over 600,000 cancer patients; approximately 50,000 newly diagnosed cases are added annually.Mechanical editing and inspection of punchcards and field audits are the principal tools for quality control. Mechanical editing of the punchcards includes testing for blank entries and detection of in-admissable or inconsistent codes. Highly improbable codes are subjected to special scrutiny. Field audits include the drawing of a 1-10 percent random sample of punchcards submitted by a registry; the charts are .then reabstracted and recoded by a NCI staff member and differences between the punchcard and the results of independent review are noted.

Verán ustedes las chozas más humildes. El discurso de pobreza en la diplomacia pública cardenista dirigida a Estados Unidos

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-281
Author(s):  
Sylvia Dümmer Scheel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Government ◽  
Lazaro Cardenas ◽  
The New Deal

El artículo analiza la diplomacia pública del gobierno de Lázaro Cárdenas centrándose en su opción por publicitar la pobreza nacional en el extranjero, especialmente en Estados Unidos. Se plantea que se trató de una estrategia inédita, que accedió a poner en riesgo el “prestigio nacional” con el fin de justificar ante la opinión pública estadounidense la necesidad de implementar las reformas contenidas en el Plan Sexenal. Aprovechando la inusual empatía hacia los pobres en tiempos del New Deal, se construyó una imagen específica de pobreza que fuera higiénica y redimible. Ésta, sin embargo, no generó consenso entre los mexicanos. This article analyzes the public diplomacy of the government of Lázaro Cárdenas, focusing on the administration’s decision to publicize the nation’s poverty internationally, especially in the United States. This study suggests that this was an unprecedented strategy, putting “national prestige” at risk in order to explain the importance of implementing the reforms contained in the Six Year Plan, in the face of public opinion in the United States. Taking advantage of the increased empathy felt towards the poor during the New Deal, a specific image of hygienic and redeemable poverty was constructed. However, this strategy did not generate agreement among Mexicans.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document