It’s not usually as ridiculous as Al Gore trying to sound like Martin Luther King, Jr. at black churches or Barack Obama using a “ghetto-style accent” before black audiences. But a new study shows that Democrats really do talk down to minorities, whereas white Republicans speak essentially the same way to both white and non-white audiences.
As the Washington Times reports, “Yale and Princeton researchers found that both white Democratic presidential candidates and self-identified liberals played down their competence when speaking to minorities, using fewer words that conveyed accomplishment and more words that expressed warmth.”
This is typically known as playing upon people’s emotions — otherwise called “demagoguery.”
The Times continues:
On the other hand, there were no significant differences in how white conservatives, including Republican presidential candidates, spoke to white versus minority audiences.
“White liberals self-present less competence to minorities than to other Whites — that is, they patronize minorities stereotyped as lower status and less competent,” according to the study’s abstract.
Cydney Dupree, Yale School of Management assistant professor of organizational behavior, said she was surprised by the findings of the study, which sought to discover how “well-intentioned whites” interact with minorities.
“It was kind of an unpleasant surprise to see this subtle but persistent effect,” Ms. Dupree said. “Even if it’s ultimately well-intentioned, it could be seen as patronizing.”
Of course, it’s not “well-intentioned” but self-serving, designed to sway and win votes. This bespeaks of the researchers’ bias, though: They assume leftist whites are the “well-intentioned” ones. Why?
Because leftists tell them so.
The question the researchers should now ask themselves is: If these liberal politicians are phony in their appeals to minorities, are they also phony in their claims to want to help minorities?
Further examining the dumbing-down phenomenon, the “researchers then set up an experiment in which white liberals were asked to respond to hypothetical individuals named ‘Emily’ and ‘Lakisha,’” the Times also reports.
Quoting a press release, the paper then writes, “Liberal individuals were less likely to use words that would make them appear highly competent when the person they were addressing was presumed to be black rather than white…. No significant differences were seen in the word selection of conservatives based on the presumed race of their partner.”
It’s easy for, and appealing to, conservatives to now simply write off liberals as “racists,” but it’s more complex than that. Leftists in general are defined by prejudice, which they exhibit against Christians, “dead white males” (and live ones, too), the West, the United States, conservatives, plastic straws, SUVs (at one time), market economics, sexual propriety, traditional sex roles, gun ownership, etc.
That is to say, literally anything can be the object of a prejudice. As Dictionary.com informs, a prejudice is simply “an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.” This describes every leftist position, of course.
This brings us to why, as even radical feminist and socialist Meghan Murphy lamented recently, the Right is willing to engage “with those they may disagree with” while the Left “wants an echo chamber.” The Left thus behaves because prejudices, by definition, have no basis in Truth; thus, since honest debate’s purpose is to reveal Truth, it would expose leftist positions for the falsehoods and fallacies they are.
(This is one reason why leftists neutralize debate with silencing tactics such as name-calling; shouting people down; boycotting conservative speakers; threats; intimidation; “hate speech” laws and codes; Google’s burying of search results; and social-media censorship such as Twitter’s “shadowbanning,” Facebook’s blacklisting, and, of course, “deplatforming.” Prejudices wilt under the light of Truth.)
Why are leftists defined by prejudice? It’s because they operate mainly based on emotion, which, being a phenomenon “without knowledge, thought, or reason,” is the realm of prejudice. What follows is that whatever stance they take regarding blacks, it will likely reflect prejudice — either for or against.
As for campaigning, since leftists’ positions have no basis in Truth, they can’t appeal to others with substance and are left with nothing but style; this means, among other things, altering accents and words to suit your audience. This can become instinctive over time, like a chameleon changing colors.
Unfortunately, this is repeatedly practiced because it generally works — it can even convince miseducated academics that wells of blind ambition are “well-intentioned.”
Photo: AP Images