[From studies revolving around Hurricane Katrina, results indicate] Americans are more willing to provide extended government assistance to white victims than to African Americans and other minorities -- particularly blacks with darker skin.
Overall, the "penalty" for being black and a Katrina victim amounted to about $1,000, according to the latest online study by The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com and Shanto Iyengar, director of the Political Communication Lab at Stanford University.
Tests indicate how much subconscious racial bias shapes attitudes toward disaster relief. People were willing to give assistance to a white victim, on average, for about 12 months. But for an African American victim, the average duration was a month shorter while the amount of aid was nearly the same, meaning that blacks would collect about $1,000 less than white victims.
Skin tone also mattered. A darker-skinned black received less over a shorter period of time than a light-skinned white, all other factors being equal. Content of the articles also made a difference: Participants were the least generous after reading one article on looting.
"These results suggest that news media coverage of natural disasters can shape the audience's response," Iyengar said. "Framing the disaster in ways that evoke racial stereotypes can make people less supportive of large-scale relief efforts. News reports about flooding evoke one set of apparently positive images in the reader's mind; reports about lawlessness evoke quite another."
[Excerpt of editorial by Richard Morin, Washington Post]
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