Recently I took one of those Facebook surveys. I usually ignore them, because I know they are mostly clickbait and probably wanting to sell you something, but in this case I respected the source of the survey.
It was posted by Prager University, the online teaching tool of Dennis Prager’s company, which also produces his daily radio show. Here is the list of multiple-choice questions:
- What percentage of Americans are Black?
- What percentage of Americans are Latino?
- What percentage of Americans make more than $500,000 per year?
- What percentage of Americans are transsexual?
- What percentage of American are gay?
Each question had multiple possible answers. I got three questions exactly right (60%), but was very close on a fourth question. Here is how I did and how most people answered these questions.
What percentage of Americans are Black? The correct answer is 12% which is what I said, but most people taking the survey selected “41%.” Quite a difference, which we’ll explore as we go along.
What percentage of Americans are Latino? The correct answer: 17%. I got this one right, also, but most people said 39%. So we could see a pattern, but two events don’t signify a trend. Let’s continue.
What percentage of Americans make more than $500,000 per year? Correct answer (and my answer): 1%, but most people selected 26%.
What percentage of Americans are transsexual? Correct answer: 1%. I got this one wrong, because I selected “<1%”. The most popular answer was 22%. I think we can declare a trend now.
What percentage of American are gay? Correct answer: 3%. I also missed this one because I chose 6% (if I remember correctly), but most people said 30%.
So what can we conclude from this? Why are most Americans (who completed this survey – probably not a scientific sample) so wildly wrong in their answers, and always in the direction of greatly inflating the real numbers?
Prager U’s conclusion is that the news media and popular culture have deceived us about the make up of our nation’s population. The focus of these left-leaning institutions has for years been righting the wrongs of the past, so they make sure to “include” those “marginalized” peoples, like black, hispanic, gay, trans, etc. So in television commercials and magazine ads, they are overrepresented. Every sitcom and drama on TV has at least one gay character. The majority of TV commercials seem to feature non-white characters. That is unlikely to actually be the case, but, again, it is the perception.
Now DEI policies (diversity-equity-inclusion) codify that overrepresentation and guarantee the public’s misperception of what our nation is and who our citizens are.
If people thought about it, if 41% of Americans were black and 39% were hispanic, whites would not be the majority population at all, but this survey didn’t measure “thinking.” It revealed perceptions. It’s true that whites are not as large a majority as they once were, but to say hispanics and blacks make up 80% of the population is just crazy.
Should racial and other minorities have a visible presence in the culture? Of course they should, but from this survey it’s easy to see that perceptions have been skewed. The question is, was this skewing on purpose?
The income question is an outlier, because the media and culture take a negative view of high earners, as opposed to the positive view insisted upon concerning racial and sexual-preference minorities, but they still encourage an inflated perception in the number of high-income people in the country. Hating the rich is one of America’s favorite past times, but it is itself based on a misperception: that if someone else has wealth, it takes away from what I have; the “zero-sum game.” In other words, there’s just one pie, and if someone has a big piece, my piece is necessarily smaller.
The truth is, in a capitalist economy, new “pies” are being continually created by innovation and entrepreneurship. If your piece of the pie is too small, it’s possible to bake additional pies. It’s not easy; you could fail, but it’s possible.
But the left’s goal, explicitly stated in things like the writings of Communist icons and “Rules for Radicals,” is to foment division and anarchy, so that people will demand “change,” which provides an opening for those who want to radically change the social order so that they are able to seize power. That’s what it’s ultimately about.
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