Pew changes study to appease left-wing conspiracy theorists

The Pew Research Center has heavily revised a study about how black people feel about many U.S. institutions after external pressure from the Left.

Its initial report was titled “Most Black Americans Believe Racial Conspiracy Theories About U.S. Institutions,” while the second version was titled “Most Black Americans Believe U.S. Institutions Were Designed To Hold Black People Back.”

One of Pew's original results said that “about two-thirds (67%) of Black Americans say racial conspiracy theories in business, in the form of targeted marketing of luxury products to Black people in order to bankrupt them, are true and happening today,” while the revision said that “67% of Black Americans say businesses today target marketing of luxury products to Black people in order to put them into debt.” While the initial report acknowledged the obvious farce in this belief, the second presented it as if it were possible.

Both versions of the report were primarily authored by Kiana Cox , “a sociologist with research and teaching expertise in race, gender, Black history and politics, applied statistics, and qualitative methods.” However, she changed her wording after criticism from organizations such as JustLeadershipUSA, whose president said : “It is, in fact, deeply harmful and problematic to label these beliefs — based on Black Americans’ direct experience and knowledge of their own history — as ‘conspiracy theories.’”

The fact that Pew kowtowed to this pressure and heavily revised its report undermines its institutional neutrality. How can anyone trust the results of a Pew study now that it is well established that Pew is willing to hide facts that challenge left-wing narratives?

A second key takeaway from this story is the results of the poll itself. For example, “55% of Black adults say secret and nonconsensual medical experiments (like the Tuskegee study) are happening to Black people today,” “76% of Black adults say Black public officials today are singled out to be discredited in a way that doesn’t happen to White public officials,” and “74% say Black people are more likely than White people to be incarcerated because prisons want to make money on the backs of Black people today.”

The public's belief in wild theories is growing among almost every racial, political, and socioeconomic group. While legacy media outlets obsess over the Right’s occasional foray into something like QAnon, they will regularly treat left-wing conspiracies like facts. One of the most obvious examples is the New York Times's long-running 1619 Project, which promotes a revisionist history about the founding of the United States.

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This is not to discount well-established racial disparities in the incarceration rate, poverty rate, abortion rate, and numerous other areas of life. There remains a lasting legacy of racism in the U.S., but it is getting better, and the promotion of ridiculous conspiracy theories is not a solution to any of these problems.

Too many people believe that the world is out to get them, and too many in the media are willing to feed this paranoia. This is a problem on both sides of the political aisle, but those on the Left seem to think they are immune from falling for conspiracy theories.