South Carolina exit polls ask voters whether blacks are getting too uppity about equality

[Playinghardball]

n exit poll in South Carolina being criticized after voters in Charleston, Columbia, Greenville, and Spartanburg were asked a series of questions about race and slavery, WSPA reports.

Voters were asked whether “blacks are getting too demanding in their push for equal rights”:



The poll was conducted by a political scientist from Clemson University, David Woodard, who insisted that it was not meant to be provocative.

“It was designed to take advantage of a political moment of Senator Tim Scott’s election as the first African-American from a southern state since reconstruction,” he told WSPA.

But many voters were, in fact, provoked by questions that asked them to “agree” or “disagree” with statements like, “it’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder, they could be as well as whites.”

The political scientist who asked them to do so said the questions have been used by pollsters for decades — and they are taken, word-for-word, from the Modern Racism Scale, an analytic tool used to gauge an individual’s non-conscious biases.

This exit poll is not, however, the first time Woodard has stirred up a racially based controversy.

>snip<

Watch a report on the exit polls via WSPA below.

]More here: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/south-carolina-exit-polls-asks-voters-whether-blacks-are-getting-too-uppity-about-equality/

[Blue Owl]

1. Break out the uppity meter

[GeorgeGist]

2. "... they could be as well as whites?"

But many voters were, in fact, provoked by questions that asked them to “agree” or “disagree” with statements like, “it’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder, they could be as well as whites.”

[1StrongBlackMan]

3. If that was an actual Exit Poll Question ...

I want to see the results.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. "been used for decades" ... Hmmm, could that mean it's badly out of date ?

Get with the times, guys. Lots of people nowadays realize there's nothing excessive in any way about expecting ***EQUAL*** rights.

[joeybee12]

5. Ever since 1865...nt

[Blue_Tires]

6. Damn...Are they serious??

[AverageJoe90]

7. Waht. Teh. FAHK. (repeated x100)

That was about my exact reaction to this. Dumbass Davy.

[gollygee]

8. They're trying to find out the level of racism of the voters

How would you word a question if you wanted to find that out? You'd word it just like that. I don't think it's racist to investigate how much racism there is - to study it. You have to study it to understand it and fight it.

Here is the full modern racism scale: http://www.prenhall.com/divisions/hss/app/social/addchap7.html

Here's a description of it:

The Modern Racism Scale (MRS) was developed to measure subtle forms of racism that are prevalent in the United States today and includes questions that indirectly relate to racial attitudes. This newer and subtler form of racism comprises subconscious attitudes and may present itself as an endorsement of exaggerated ethnic differences or a rejection of minorities for supposed nonracial reasons. Current measures of racism (e.g., the MRS) were developed because older scales used very blatant questions to gauge racism–for example, “Do you agree or disagree that African Americans are inferior to Caucasians?” or “Do you think that it is a bad idea for African Americans and Caucasians to intermarry?”


The only problem I see is that it probably needs to be updated, because that's still not subtle enough to measure what they're probably looking for. Just like it had to be made more subtle in the 80s from the test of the 50s and 60s, it needs to be tweaked again.

[jwirr]

9. You are correct about that. By asking the loaded question the answer is more likely to reveal his

negative feelings that he might otherwise try to hide. We all know that racism has not disappeared but this may show the degree it is still present.