In an Italian study, whites and blacks were shown videos of hands being pricked with a needle. When whites saw white person’s hand being pricked, they registered a “signature empathic brain response” indicating that they were emotionally disturbed. When they saw a video of a black person’s hand being pricked, they did not.

The blacks who viewed the same videos reacted in the opposite way.

Subjects were also shown a video in which the hand being pricked was purple. Remarkably, in this case, both blacks and whites were emotionally disturbed by seeing someone of the “purple” race suffering pain.

Prof. Avenanti and his colleagues interpret the results as showing that people are emotionally disturbed by seeing someone of their own race and also people of a different (“purple”) race suffering pain, except when they have had experience with the different race. It is likely that people have a genetically programmed propensity to empathize with members of their own race but to feel indifferent to suffering experienced by members of another race with which they are familiar.

This conclusion makes sense in the light of common observation. Whites make large voluntary donations to alleviate suffering affecting “purple” people who live far away in such places as Africa, Haiti, or Pakistan. Whites are less inclined, however, to alleviate the suffering of other races they do know. In America a welfare state would require whites to support blacks, and because whites have personal experience of blacks, they are less sympathetic to their suffering. At the same time, it is well known that blacks make charitable contributions almost without exception to organizations set up to help blacks.

In Florida, a large population of elderly whites pays only grudgingly for schools that will mostly benefit blacks and Hispanics. Maine, Vermont, and West Virginia are the most racially homogeneous states, and spend the highest proportion of gross state product on education.