Everyone Steps Back? The Widespread Retraction of Crowd-Funding Support for Minority Creators when Migration Fear is High

We study racial biases on Kickstarter across multiple ethnic groups from 2009-2021. Scaling the concept of racially salient events, we quantify the close co-movement of minority funding gaps to inflamed political rhetoric surrounding migration. The racial funding gap more than doubles in the most inflamed periods compared to baseline. Analysis of backer data shows the importance of distant, mostly white backers for projects reaching a critical threshold of support. Retractions in support during tense periods are even spatially, as present in liberal cities as conservative ones. This broad-based weakening is consistent with unconscious bias highlighted in prior experimental work.