Historical knowledge predicted racism perception for both African Americans and European Americans, the researchers found, and overall, the African-American students were better at identifying historically true events. African-American students who reported greater relevance of racial identity also perceived more racism, while European-American students who placed greater importance on their racial identity saw less racism, especially on a systemic level, the researchers said.
The results suggest that knowledge of historically documented racism partially may help explain the relationship between someone's race and their perceptions of racism.