The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Are blacks more homophobic than whites?

Re: Are blacks more homophobic than whites?

blacksmythe — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:35:30 -0000

Ta-Nehisi I'm reading Razib as saying something very different. I'm writing a paper on attitudes towards HIV/AIDS, just with black men and black women. What I find is that controlled for religion, education, income, and region, that black men tend to be more homophobic towards gay men, less homophobic towards lesbians.

If I began finding differences between black men and black women in these attitudes...and these differences washed out after adding the controls? I wouldn't say there were racial differences...because there aren't. It's the other stuff doing the work.

Moving to voting for example, Ludacris in his pro-Obama rap talks about black people getting off of our asses and voting. The assumption here of course being that we don't.

Now in raw numbers he's right I think. Black people do tend to vote at lower numbers.

But this is only because we are poorer. When socio-economic status is controlled for, blacks actually vote MORE often (particularly if they have high degrees of racial consciousness). Bottom line? Back where we started from. At least based on Razib's analysis of the GIS, blacks actually AREN'T more homophobic (attitudinally) than whites.

Re: Are blacks more homophobic than whites?

razib — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:03:21 -0000

"Only no one polls that way."

but the GSS has breakdowns by ethnic groups (ancestry), religion, region, etc. if you're curious, look into it.

i am not particularly interested in this topic; but when ta-nehisi posed the question i knew i could answer, or start to, easily. specifically, it took me 40 minutes total to do the right queries, format the graphs, write the prose, and publish. there are some things behind the scenes which you don't see, like the regressions with betas i generated, mostly because i didn't want to deal with more stat-savvy types breaking that down piece by piece. regression isn't the be all and end all, and it can be an overused tool that can be turned to cherry picking.

for readers interested, go here:

sda.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/hsda?...

to elaborate on what i found, it seems that by and large to a first approximation black differences in aggregate homophobia can be attributed to differences in demographics between blacks and whites. most especially, a greater number of blacks are religious fundamentalists of a sort. that being said, as i told ta-nehisi in email, even blacks who are religious liberals are more homophobic than whites who are religious liberals, so this isn't the totality of the difference. but, at the end of the day there just aren't that many black religious liberals. by this, i don't mean political liberals, i mean people who are unitarian-universalist, or the type of episcopalian who believes god is a metaphor for the universe or something. so that effect is not very large when put next to the back that there are so many religious fundamentalists within the black community. to illustrate what i'm saying, some numbers.

i just went to the GSS, and looked at those who admit some doubt in god's existence all the way to out and out atheists vs. those who say they "know" god exists.

the percentages for those who know god exists by race:

white: 61.1%

black: 81.6%

now, the percentages for those who express doubt in any way about god's exist for those thing homosexuality is not wrong at all:

white: 42.1%

black: 30.3%

same attitude toward homosexuality for those who "know" god exists:

white: 16%

black: 12%

as you can see, there is a robust black-white difference in regards to homosexuality, but there's also a robust black-white difference in attitudes toward religion. most of the former can be accounted for by the latter, but, not all. but there just aren't that many black religious skeptics (i would have limited the god question to atheists, but the black sample size in the GSS is very small, N=29 for that), so the greater levels of aggregate homophobia across the black community irrespective of religiosity doesn't really overshadow in anyway the primary role that religion plays in this difference.

finally, why would black religious skeptics be more homophobic? i think one plausible hypothesis has to do with socialization and sorting. because of the numbers black religious skeptics are probably interacting and socializing with fundamentalists much more than white religious skeptics, who have their own subcultures to a far greater degree than seculars and religious liberals. so probably their mores are more strongly impacted by religious outlooks even if they personally are not religious (think lapsed catholics who still have a visceral rage at desecration of the eucharist).

Re: Are blacks more homophobic than whites?

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:30:48 -0000

Check out the original post. I'd settle for some Mexicans, Cubans and Puerto-Ricans. I agree that there's ethnicity among whites--dig, Obama's "Appalachia" problem. That's one of the problems with comparing "blacks" to "whites." We aren't two sides of the same coin.

Re: Are blacks more homophobic than whites?

Sporcupine — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:22:01 -0000

I think you and Sullivan are talking past each other about "ethnic groups." He's using the term to mean race, which in turn means something between skin color and continent of ancestral origin.

I think you're using it more carefully, but I'd love for you to spell that out.

American whites are not one subculture with common stories, food, and traditions, often sharing neighborhoods and churches with folks from a similar background.

Using that definition, Sullivan's making a mistake by sloshing together Irish-Americans, Polish-Americans, Jewish-Americans, and so on. He's also lumping in the folks sometimes called WASPS, Anglos, or just whites: that group at least need to be split between those from the Northeast, Appalachian folk and white folks of the deep South.

I'm a cross between the Appalachian and deep South variants, and I'm pretty confident that both groups that I'm from would poll noticably worse than African-Americans.

Only no one polls that way. Closest you can get is Jewish, white Catholic, white Protestant, white other Christian. As a result, my people can't be called out for their meanness. New England and California white folks give them cover they don't deserve.

Sullivan should be able to see that happening, and he shouldn't be a party to melting all white people together while setting African-Americans far apart.

Re: Are blacks more homophobic than whites?

T Harris — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:02:26 -0000

I have found homophobia in the black community rampant at all economic and social levels. Have you ever heard a group of Ques or Sigmas talking about Alphas? They are arguably (at this point in time) part of the black elite, but ridiculously defensive of their own masculinity. I've never heard a group of individuals use the phrase "no homo" so much, ever.

I am not hating on frats- I am in a BGLO myself- just saying that class has nothing to do with homophobia in the black community. It's religion, social conditioning and plain old fear- folks should know better.

I hate generalizing on things like this- who is the most or least homohpobic is impossible to accurately measure. But I don't have too much trouble believing it could be the black community. Or we could just be the most vocal about it (thanks hip hop).

Re: Are blacks more homophobic than whites?

DougEFresh — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:50:45 -0000

If you are dealing with ethnic groups, I would think that Arabs and Persians have a higher level of anti-homosexual views than blacks.

Re: Are blacks more homophobic than whites?

shani-o — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:33:29 -0000

It's good to see the numbers. Thanks, Razib.

I just object to the people who consider homophobia in the black community to be some great cultural failing, as opposed to a result of poverty, education, and evangelicism.

Re: Are blacks more homophobic than whites?

Joel — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:18:58 -0000

Frankly, I thought it was a class-contaminated sample, too, but its interesting that Razib uses facts to set everyone straight. As a scientist, I should (and do) appreciate that.