Counties with more Confederate monuments also had more lynchings, study finds

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Who is surprised by this?

Link to tweet

This “provides compelling evidence that these symbols are associated with hate” and racism, and not more innocuous things like “heritage” or “Southern pride,” the study’s authors concluded.

The study was led by social psychology researcher Kyshia Henderson, along with data scientist Samuel Powers and professors Sophie Trawalter, Michele Claibourn and Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi at U-Va.’s Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.


As recently as 2015, 57 percent of Americans saw the Confederate flag as representing “Southern pride” more than racism, according to a CNN poll. Seventy-five percent of White Southerners felt it represented pride, versus only 11 percent of Black Southerners. Those numbers had hardly moved from a similar poll taken 15 years earlier in 2000.

But the debate around Confederate symbols and memorials is not just a matter of opinion; it contains “testable questions,” Henderson said. “Specifically, we can test whether Confederate memorials are associated with hate.”

The team compared county-level data on lynchings between 1832 and 1950 with data on Confederate memorials. They found that in any given area, and even controlling for population and other demographic variables, the number of lynchings was a “significant predictor” of the number of memorials.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. I would be surprised if it were otherwise.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

2. WOW... now there's a shocker!!

[Wounded Bear]

3. Thanks, Captain Obvious...

for that little tidbit.

[Amishman]

4. Yes, but the statues aren't making the people racist

The racist culture of the local people compelled them to put up the statues.

The people remain the problem.

(Not saying the statues are fine, just that taking them down won't do much as they are a symptom and not a root cause)