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Democrats have started using racial justice framing to promote their progressive policies (eg, student debt relief is good b/c it will close the racial wealth gap). Is this language helpful for their causes? In a new working paper with @j_kalla, we find NO https://osf.io/tdkf3
For example, if people are told that racial minorities will benefit from Biden’s infrastructure plan, are they more or less inclined to support it? https://twitter.com/newshour/status/1379927813982142465?s=10
Political science research suggests that, largely due to negative racial attitudes, associating policies with racial minorities decreases support for said policies. However, Democratic politicians are increasingly adopting racial equity language when they speak about policies.
Polling during summer 2020 showed drastic increases in support for #BlackLivesMatter 
and ending racial discrimination. However, it remains unclear if these leftward shifts in racial attitudes have also shifted policy preferences on issues aimed at addressing racial inequality.
and ending racial discrimination. However, it remains unclear if these leftward shifts in racial attitudes have also shifted policy preferences on issues aimed at addressing racial inequality.
Despite observed increases in support for racial justice and Democratic elites’ use of race and race-class frames in their public messaging, we find no evidence that Americans are persuaded by these policy frames.
Among those subgroups (Democrats, racial minorities) who might be expected to be responsive to racial framing, we find no differences between race and class framing. However, among Republicans, we generally find evidence of backlash from race framing.
We find that the class frame weakly dominates both the race and race-class frames. The class frame significantly increases the belief among white respondents that “People like me will benefit from this policy” + all respondents' likelihood of agreeing that “This is a fair policy”
While many have celebrated renewed attention to racial equity as a sign of racial progress, our results suggest otherwise. It’s not evident that these increasingly liberal racial attitudes have led to increased support for policies that are framed as racial justice initiatives.
It is our hope that nuanced approaches to public policy that take into account the complexity of racial attitudes, and the gap between attitudes and preferences, will help politicians and policymakers best advance racial justice.
This is still a work in progress. Please get in touch with any feedback on this draft -- thanks!
h/t to @mattyglesias, @MarcNovicof, & @JerusalemDemsas for writing several posts that inspired this paper, most recently: https://www.slowboring.com/p/race-and-zoning
