In our identity-driven age, race relations can often be presented like its a zero-sum game, in which better relations for ethnic minorities means worsening opportunities for white people.  Despite this common narrative, especially among the alt-right, new research from Brock University suggests it’s not something that has stuck in the minds of Americans.

The research, which explored racial discrimination across the United States, found that whilst discrimination still very much exists, it is on the decline.  The findings emerged after surveys were sent to people across the country, and these were compared with hate crime information from the FBI database.

The survey asked people to estimate the amount of discrimination experienced by both white and black people.  This found that people generally accepted that black people were more likely to face discrimination than white people, but that this varied, with both white people, and particularly white Republicans, generally believing that black people experienced less discrimination than black people themselves thought.

A second survey then explored people’s direct experiences with discrimination, whether at work or in various other spheres of life.  The responses were compared with hate crime data, and the analysis revealed that people of all races reported fewer instances of discrimination than they did in the past.  While it’s possible that hate crimes are being less reported than in the past, the researchers posit that this is evidence of a decline in discrimination.

What is perhaps interesting from the data is that it appears to show absolutely no correlation between the apparent decline in discrimination towards black people and any corresponding increase in discrimination against white people.  It should perhaps come as no surprise that claims made by various alt-right groups are incorrect, but it’s still nice to have some data to support that belief.