A few months ago, three University of Rochester political scientists -- Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen -- published an astonishing study. They discovered that a strong link exists between the proportion of slaves residing in a southern county in 1860 and the racial conservatism (and voting habits) of its white residents today. The more slave-intensive a southern county was 150 years ago, the more conservative and Republican its contemporary white residents. The authors tested their findings against every plausible control factor -- for instance, whether the results could be explained simply by population density -- but the correlation held. Higher levels of slave ownership in 1860 made white Southerners more opposed to affirmative action, score higher on the anti-black-affect scale, and more hostile to [modern-day] Democrats.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Apr 2014 16:38:42 +0000
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