Replication Data for: "What Does Race Mean? Racial Disparities in the Public Mind"

The COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd highlighted racial disparities in health, economic, and social well-being in the US. How do Americans make sense of these disparities? Do their beliefs about what race *is* shape their explanations? We use original survey and experimental data to examine how Americans across race and party define race and how they apply their understandings to explain disparities in social conditions that lie at the core of important political issues. We find that Americans across groups entertain multiple meanings of race simultaneously, endorsing both essentialist and constructivist leanings. However, when asked to choose, a sizable proportion endorse essentialist views. A survey experiment demonstrates that media messages can legitimize essentialist interpretations and increase their use in explaining racial disparities in health, education, and incarceration. Public understandings of race, then, may have implications for policy demands.