This paper provides novel evidence that exposure to children’s media can lead to long-term reductions in prejudice and increased support for demographically diverse political candidates. Sesame Street’s positive representation of minority characters, egalitarian minority-white interactions, and working women was distinctive in the media landscape of 1969 when it launched and quickly became wildly popular. Leveraging technological variation in broadcast reception and cohort exposure, we find that cohorts exposed to high Sesame Street coverage levels are 4.2 percentage points more likely to vote. They have lower measures of racial biases, and report more votes for minority and women candidates for the U.S. House – by 8.1 and 5.8 percentage points, respectively. While voting increased slightly more for Democrats–whose candidates are more diverse–turnout gains are split between both parties on ballots where both candidates are white men.

This paper studies the impact of racial representation in local government on individual migration decisions, public goods provision, and residential segregation. By combining individual-level migration data with closely contested mayoral elections, the analysis shows that electing a Black mayor reduces the amenities disparity between majority-Black and white neighborhoods and increases the overall population in majority-Black neighborhoods. The population increase is primarily attributed to decreased out-migration by both Black and white residents. The net effect of these changes is an increase in racial segregation, driven by the greater concentration of Black individuals in majority-Black neighborhoods.

We draw on statewide data from North Carolina to examine the impacts of racial and ethnic representation in city councils on policing. Specifically, we focus on outcomes of traffic stops; e.g., whether a driver receives a warning or a citation after being stopped. We first document large Black-white and Latino-white disparities in the likelihood of consequence (arrest or citation) after a traffic stop. We then use a difference-in-differences design, focusing on changes following (narrow) elections of nonwhite (rather than white) councilmembers, and find that increased nonwhite council representation significantly reduces Black-white gaps in stops and actions taken after a stop. The magnitude of the reduction is similar with and without officer fixed effects, suggesting that results are largely driven by individual officer-level behavior change rather than a change in the composition of the police force.

This paper examines how racial animus responds to the presence and performance of minority star athletes, focusing on Black quarterbacks in the National Football League (NFL) – a highly salient media environment central to national and regional identity in the United States. We show that exposure to Black quarterbacks shapes racial hostility in both the short and long-run. Using a game-day event-study design, we identify evidence of emotion-driven racial retaliation. Relative to games where both quarterbacks were white, losses involving a Black quarterback are followed by a 16% increase in hate crime rates. These effects are concentrated after emotionally engaging games which generate a 40% rise in hate crimes, a 36% increase in hate speech indicators, and a 0.035 sd increase in implicit bias. In the long-run, we document a performance-contingent updating process. Areas with low-performing Black quarterback-led teams exhibit little change in racial animus. In contrast, when Black quarterback-led teams advance to championship games, hate crime rates fall by 32%, racial slur searches decline by -0.082 sds, hate speech indicators decrease by 17%, and implicit bias measures fall by -0.040 sds. Exposure to opposition Black quarterbacks does not produce long-run effects.