Most white Americans are biased against blacks, but it differs across the country. In this map, the redder the state, the higher the hate. Michigan, in gray, is in middle, bias-wise, and the bluer states are less biased than Michigan.
There’s some tricky methodology involved, and there may be some “selection bias,” but if anything, the survey results may underestimate the prejudice.
Here’s The Washington Post Wonk Blog report:
Most white Americans demonstrate bias against blacks, even if they’re not aware of or able to control it.
It’s a surprisingly little-discussed factor in the anguishing debates over race and law enforcement that followed the shootings of unarmed black men by white police officers.
Such implicit biases — which, if they were to influence split-second law enforcement decisions, could have life or death consequences — are measured by psychological tests, most prominently the computerized Implicit Association Test, which has been taken by over two million people online at the website Project Implicit.
Based on this data, it appears that whites in some states may exhibit higher levels of implicit bias than those in other states. The following map, courtesy of Project Implicit, shows the states with the highest level of implicit bias (high number, red) and lowest level of implicit bias (low number, blue).
Gray represents states with a middle amount of implicit bias;
Michigan is the median state. Overall, the map reflects the scores of 1.51 million individuals, ranging from a high of 99,660 test takers from California to a low of 1,722 test takers from Hawaii.