By Peter Weber, The Week
What do Americans see when they look in the mirror? Or rather, how do they envision the country in their mind’s eye? A new poll from YouGov America gives us an answer — and it is troubling, though perhaps not in the way it first seems.
In broad terms, the poll shows that Americans consistently, and vastly, overestimate the size of minority groups. What portion of society is gay and lesbian? Respondents say 30 percent; in truth it’s about 3 percent. Bisexuals? People say 29 percent; in reality, it’s 4 percent. How about transgender people? Those polled say 21 percent; it’s actually more like 0.6 percent.
The same pattern holds for religious, as well as racial and ethnic, minorities. Respondents estimate the country is 27 percent Muslim and 30 percent Jewish when the actual proportions are 1 and 2 percent, respectively. Those polled likewise think Native Americans make up 27 percent of the country when they are 1 percent, Asian Americans are 29 percent when they are 6 percent, and Black Americans are 41 percent when they are 12 percent.
The first instinct for many when they hear about such responses is to speculate about causes of the error. These range from dismissing the findings (No way Americans could be this ill-informed! They must be messing with the pollsters) to speculating that they’re mainly a function of television and movies portraying a world in which minorities are more prevalent than they are in the real world. Then there are those who see the results as an ominous reflection of paranoia and bigotry at large in the country, with the results driven mainly by ignorance combined with fear of the Other.
