Invisible norms? Statistics of racial polarization and consensus

Social scientists often arrive at opposite portrayals of American race relations, despite relying on identical data sources. Depending on their ideological predispositions, they either minimize or maximize remaining racial inequalities. The election of President Obama suggests that the reality of American race relations likely falls somewhere in between – but where?This paper applies a simple method of comparing racial gaps across domains on a shared metric. Results suggest that non-violence represents a shared norm rendered invisible by traditional data presentation formats that exaggerate existing ‘crime gaps.’ Other racial gaps are more substantial, e.g., in education, income, and race-related public opinion. However, even in these domains Black–White agreement (group concordance) tends to outweigh disagreement (group discordance). Exceptions are monetary reparations for slavery and presidential approval ratings of Obama. Thus, characterizations of America as ‘post-racial’ seem premature. However, given that racial equality (once achieved) will marked by group concordance and shared norms, equality measures should capture emerging commonalities in addition to remaining gaps.