The Washington Post released this map showing the most racist parts of America according to Google searches of the N-word.
The study, conducted by PLOS ONE, reveals some interesting and unexpected patterns across the states. One might think the South would be more racist than any other location in the US, but the Appalachian area appears to be the worst offender. There are areas of the South that are just as bad though. Virtually the entire west side of the country was much lower than average.
Researchers tracked Google searches containing the N-word from 2004–2007. It is difficult to measure racism, but these searches are good indicators in a sense that people aren't usually censoring their feelings online. However, they don't necessarily mean the person is racist and racist people might not be Googling that word either.
Although the study may not be perfect, The Washington Post reports that, "The researchers on the PLOS ONE paper found that racist searches were correlated with higher mortality rates for blacks, even after controlling for a variety of racial and socio-economic variables." So how racist is your part of the country?
For all the details, check out the full report at PLOS ONE and the Washington Post's analysis.
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