GARE Public Resources

As we approach a time when there will no longer be any single racial majority in America, we have to ask ourselves hard questions. Are we comfortable with race, and racial dynamics, as our nation’s demographics change? Are we ready to embrace one another despite our perceived differences, or will we choose the cynical acceptance of what has become the norm in our country— ongoing segregation, Black voter suppression, economic exploitation, militarized policing, and mass incarceration? Can we counter the race wedge - the process of using race as a tactic to divide people in order to achieve a political outcome? Are we ready to embrace a new vision of shared prosperity? Are we willing to embrace a truly inclusive democracy?

We can assess where Americans land on many of these questions by understanding how people respond to messages about race in the frst place. In CSI’s first communications testing report, Talking About Race: A Summary of Findings, we demonstrated that it is better to address race than to avoid it. Most notably, we demonstrated that progressive messages about health care reform and subprime lending that addressed race prevailed over conservative messages that avoided it, as well as over progressive messages that were race neutral.

In Let's Talk About Race, we explored whether talking about race directly could efectively move people to support progressive fscal policies. With the participant data supplied by research consultants, the Analyst Institute in 2012 and Pacific Market Research in 2014, CSI successfully completed two rounds of testing with a nationally representative sample. We tested messages that re-frame people of color as contributing, hardworking Americans —“makers” instead of “takers”—with the goal of moving people toward supporting more progressive fiscal policies.

The testing conducted in this report was made possible by the generous support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. We would like to thank our research consultants—the Analyst Institute, Lake Research Partners, and Pacific Market Research—for their excellent work and collaboration.

Author: Jessica Kang

#Public-Communications