Which Identity is More Important: Race, Gender, or Religion?

Or are we just trying to put smoke in a box?

There’s this line from Walt Whitman that I think about a lot when I am doing survey work, it’s from Song of Myself, 51:

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

There’s this inherent tension in doing survey research. We are trying to get people to explain their thinking about things. I don’t know if tha…