1. Charles A. Gallagher’s article Miscounting Race: Explaining Whites’ Misperceptions of Racial Group Size, explains the reasons for why citizens have a tendency to misjudge numbers, in terms of race, in the United States. Multiple polls were taken throughout the United States revealing that Americans believe that anywhere between 29-33 percent of the U.S are black, when in fact the percentage is actually half of that. On top of that Americans also believed that whites only made up 50 percent of the population, believing they are just as big as the nonwhite population. However this was not the case. According to a census, in 2000, 75.1 percent of the U.S was white 12.7 percent black, 3.6 percent Asian, .9 percent American Indian, and Latinos made up 12.5 percent of the population. Those who had a tendency to misjudge the numbers were of the age 30 or younger, had low incomes, and graduated from high school or dropped out.
How people perceive the dominance in size of their group can have a direct affect on the racial attitudes of a population. This study behind this article examined peoples’ (who were from different social backgrounds) thoughts and reasons as to why they think the white population misunderstands their own population in the U.S. From surveys they collected that whites feel threated by other ethnicities, especially blacks, and their increasing group size. Whites also feel they have lost some of their social status as nonwhite ethnicities move into their neighborhoods. Whites would rather compete for social, economic, and political ranking amongst other whites than with nonwhites. These threats are the reasons that the whites have a tendency to exaggerate the number of nonwhites in the U.S.
Another reason that white American’s believe the numbers they do, is because of media. On the media, African Americans are primarily overrepresented. When American’s see a crime that was committed on the news, almost always they see it was a black...