The comic
Dilbert was recently removed from newspapers across the country after its creator, Scott Adams, reacted to a
recent poll by Rasmussen. The poll of 1,000 American adults asked the following question (among others):
Do you agree or disagree with this statement: "It’s OK to be white."72% of respondents said they strongly or somewhat agree, 17% said not sure, and 8% said they strongly or somewhat disagree.
In the crosstabs, among black respondents, 53% said they strongly or somewhat agree, 21% said not sure, and 26% said they strongly or somewhat disagree.
Adams' conclusion was that, since nearly of black respondents in this poll did not agree with the statement "It's OK to be white," that means blacks as a whole are a hate group. Consequently, "based on the current way things are going," his best advice to white people is to "get the hell away from black people."
We can talk about Scott Adams if you like, but my main motivation for this thread is to talk about polling of political topics, and how it's important to be skeptical of polling around potentially loaded terminology (unless that polling is specifically about that terminology, as was the case in the poll I recently cited about the phrase "woke").
For example, imagine a poll that asks respondents if they agree or disagree with the following statement:
"BLACK LIVES MATTER"
You can also use "BLUE LIVES MATTER" or "ALL LIVES MATTER" in this example to similar effect. I'm sure everyone in this thread would realize that the meaning behind those phrases is much more complex than three simple words, and that many people can read three words and infer a meaning about which lives
don't matter (or matter less).
The phrase "It's OK to be white" itself has
other political connotations. But for those who would say that such talk is hyperventilating by fringe leftists, consider another hypothetical poll question:
Do you agree or disagree with this statement: "White people are entitled to secure their existence and a future for their children."Because that is just a lightly edited restatement of the
Fourteen Words, which, like "separate but equal," carries a meaning much more significant than the mere words in the sentence. And respondents saying that they disagree with that statement does NOT mean that they believe white people don't have a right to exist, nor does it mean that they think white children should have no future.
In short, we should beware of the kind of political trolling that is possible with potentially loaded questions.
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