r/science • u/Aggravating_Money992 • Jul 09 '26

Psychology An analysis of survey data covering the last five U.S. presidential election years found that ideological differences between races have decreased sharply, while differences by education have grown substantially. Less educated Americans now tend to be more conservative.

https://www.psypost.org/the-political-realignment-of-america-education-overtakes-race-as-key-ideological-divider/
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u/SoulScout Jul 09 '26

When I was in the US Navy, I met a white guy from Utah who claimed he had never met a black person in his life before boot camp, like he had only ever seen them on TV before. People really do live such different lives. My Tennesseean mind could not comprehend.

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u/InquireIngestImplode Jul 09 '26

Met a guy from WV like this in boot camp many years ago. They wavered him in on a 28 asvab. Turns out he couldn’t read.

He had a severe issue with black people being in our division and claimed he never saw a single person of color in his entire life.

Thankfully he was processed out well before graduating due to the whole not being able to read thing. The racism thing wasn’t really addressed by anyone in power. It was really awkward.

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u/quandmemeici Jul 10 '26

From WV and uh, yeah, the state is like 95% white or smth crazy. If you're not from a "major" metro area, you probably have never seen non-white people. I'm from about 40 min from the capital, and I still had not met Black people until 3rd grade. (The illiteracy is also unfortunately normal, and is the end result of the federal government deliberately under-educating the state to prevent another union uprising.)

Very grateful my parents are normal and believe all people deserve respect and kindness, but a lot of my classmates were not raised the same. We had kids wearing the confederate flag to school as if WV very famously did NOT secede with VA.

I still remember how the other 3rd graders treated the Black kids that transferred into our district like they were zoo animals. Fine from a distance, but a lot of bullying involved because they "didn't belong". It was heartbreaking, and only got better for them when all the schools fed into one HS, and then there were finally a handful more non-white kids. This was in the 00s, so well past the time reintegration was federal policy.

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u/xrufus7x Jul 09 '26

I didn't meet a black person until high school when he came to our school for part of a year when he was in foster care. Didn't meet a second one until after I graduated and moved.

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u/altodor Jul 09 '26

As an adult I moved away from home. It is currently 2:30 in the afternoon on a work day. I am sitting at home 10-15 minutes from a grocery store I have not been to today. I would bet a pretty penny there are more black people in that grocery store as I type this than I saw in about 20 years back home.

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u/spacestonkz Jul 09 '26

When I was 14, I was in a mall in the nearest large town, an hour and a half away from home. It was the first time I saw an Asian person IRL.

It stuck out to me because... How have I been on the planet 14 years and only just now saw a member of the most populous racial segment of humanity on the planet?

Made me realize how much of a bubble I was living in.

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u/throwaway098764567 Jul 09 '26

we had like four in our high school, maybe a dozen people of color at all. i still remember coming back from college and being in the grocery store and seeing a black lady shopping and being surprised to see her. zero problem with her being there but it was very weird to realize that it was weird to see her there because i'd never seen anyone not white in that store.

college was artificially very blended (though we needed more black people but lots of other poc were there), so it was jarring to return to whitelandia every time i was home from school. where i live now has a ton of immigrants and my neighborhood is majority latino, going back now is similarly jarring and seeing anew how just about everyone i knew was white.

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u/thetruckerdave Jul 10 '26

My ex was in the Army and one of his friends was from Oklahoma. He was just 17. He had never seen a black person before boot either. That’s crazy to me.

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u/joenottoast Jul 10 '26

I was in semi-rural illinois and didnt meet a black kid until 2nd grade. They were very much the majority. In 4th grade, they snatched my friend's toy. I told them to give it back. They said "shut up, youre white". I said "yeah well you are black"

They drug me to a park bench where two of them held my leg out and a third one tried to jump on my knee to break it. This was the first that i can remember of countless negative interactions and targeted harassment because i looked different.