America Becoming Racial Trends and Their Consequences: Volume I (2001) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
9. Racial Attitudes and Relations at the Close of the Twentieth Century
9. Racial Attitudes and Relations at the Close of the Twentieth Century
Pages 264-301
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 264... ...
Essayist and political scientist Andrew Hacker declared that, "a huge racial chasm remains, and there are few signs that the coming century will see it closed" (1992:219~. Civil rights activist and legal scholar Derrick Bell offered the bleak analysis that, "racism is an integral, permanent, and indestructible component of this society" (1992:ix)
|
From page 265... ...
Sears and colleagues' conclusion is directly antithetical to that reached by Sniderman and Carmines (1997~. On the basis of a series of experiments embedded in large-scale surveys examining Whites' views about affirmative action, they argued that, "it is simply wrong to suppose that racial prejudice is a primary source of opposition to affirmative action .
|
From page 266... ...
On the other hand, there is evidence of persistent negative stereotyping of racial minorities, evidence of widely divergent views of the extent and importance of racial discrimination to modern race relations, and evidence of deepening feelings of alienation among Blacks (and possibly among members of other minority groups as well)
|
From page 267... ...
The core mission here is to convey the state of public opinion on these matters; therefore, to introduce new vocabulary inconsistent with what much of the public readily comprehends introduces a distraction.
|
From page 268... ...
Such generalizations and interpretations should be made with great caution because social phenomena may remain powerfully "racialized" even as one way of understanding prejudice or racism is undergoing major change (Bonilla-Silva, 1996~. Social psychologist Thomas Pettigrew suggested that prejudice involved "irrationally based negative attitudes against certain ethnic groups and their members" (1981:2~.
|
From page 269... ...
Federal Intervention: Do you think the federal government should see to it that White and Black children go to the same schools, or should federal officials stay out of this area, as it is not their business? Busing: In general, do you favor or oppose the busing of Black and White school children from one school district to another?
|
From page 270... ...
percent of Whites expressed the view that Black and White school children should go to separate schools, 54 percent felt that public transportation should be segregated, and 54 percent felt that Whites should receive preference over Blacks in access to jobs. By the early 1960s, percentages of Whites advocating segregation and discrimination had decreased substantially, so much so that the questions on public transportation and access to jobs were dropped from national surveys in the early 1970s (Figure 9-3~.
|
From page 271... ...
Three points about this transformation of basic principles or norms that should guide race relations bear noting. First, there is some variation in the degree of endorsement of the principle of racial equality and integration.
|
From page 272... ...
Despite intense discussion of a possible "racial backlash" in the 1960s in response to Black protests, or in the 1970s in response to school busing efforts and the implementation of affirmative action, or even in the l990s in the wake of events such as the 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 Oppose laws _,' \ .— /\- / / / _ ~ / ~ — 10 I; o 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 Favor intermarriage FIGURE 9-4 Trends in Whites' attitudes about racial intermarriage. SOURCE: Adapted from Schuman et al.
|
From page 273... ...
Persistent Negative Stereotyping A major factor influencing limits to integration and social policy with respect to race lies in the problem of antiminority, especially anti-Black, stereotyping. There is evidence that negative racial stereotypes of minor
|
From page 274... ...
put it, "it is simply wrong to suppose that there is a shortage of White Americans willing to say, publicly, something overtly negative about Black Americans" (p.
|
From page 275... ...
Cultural stereotypes refer to widely shared ideas about members of particular racial or ethnic groups (Devine, 1989; Devine and Elliot, 1995~. Any particular individual, while almost certainly aware of the broad cultural stereotype about a salient racial or ethnic group, need not personally accept or adhere to that stereotype.
|
From page 276... ...
In part, this resurgence of interest reflected a perception that racial stereotypes had, in fact, changed in form of expression to a more qualified nature, which the methodological innovation allowed researchers to tap. Gauging the exact level of negative stereotyping is not an easy task.
|
From page 277... ...
It is important to note that the observed spread of negative stereotyping depends on both the exact trait examined and the method of assessment. As regards the method of assessment, absolute ratings of Blacks, for example, tend to reveal less prevalent negative stereotypes than do relative or difference-score ratings comparing images of Whites and of Blacks.
|
From page 278... ...
SOURCE: Los Angeles Survey of Urban Inequality (1994~. than two-thirds of Whites rated Blacks and Hispanics as actually preferring to live off welfare.
|
From page 279... ...
Negative stereotyping appears to play a role in reproducing larger structural patterns of racial residential segregation (Massey and Denton, 1993~. Based on data from the 1992 Detroit Area Study (DAS)
|
From page 280... ...
To the extent these contextual features were consistent with the broad cultural stereotypes of Blacks as part of a violent, self-perpetuating, ghetto-inhabiting, poor underclass the more pronounced the effect of negative stereotyping on the judgments made. For example, stereotypes about Blacks strongly influenced the degree of hostile reactions to a Black carjacking suspect but not to a Black corporate embezzler.
|
From page 281... ...
SOURCE: Los Angeles Survey of Urban Inequality (1994~.
|
From page 282... ...
The results of two surveys highlight a crucial distinction between idiosyncratic and episodic, and between institutional and structural, views of discrimination. Local and national surveys showed that high percentages of both Blacks and Whites disapproved of the 1992 Simi Valley jury verdict that exonerated the White Los Angeles police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King (Bobo et al., 1994~.
|
From page 283... ...
(1997~. Try Harder: We asked people why they think White people seem to get more of the good things in life in America such as better jobs and more money than Black people do.
|
From page 284... ...
(1997~. Discrimination: On the average Blacks have worse jobs, income, and housing than White people.
|
From page 285... ...
Among Blacks, University of Chicago political scientist Michael Dawson's National Black Politics Survey, conducted in 1993 (Dawson, 1995) , found that 86 percent of Blacks agreed with the statement that "American society just hasn't dealt fairly with Black people." Fifty-seven percent of Blacks rejected the idea that "American society has provided Black people a fair opportunity to get ahead in life," and 81 percent agreed with the idea that "American society owes Black people a better chance in life than we currently have." A major survey of Los Angeles county residents (the Los Angeles County Social Survey, conducted by this author in 1992)
|
From page 286... ...
This tendency is especially pronounced among highly educated Blacks. In her wide-ranging assessment of data on Black public opinion, political scientist Jennifer Hochschild identifies Black disaffection, particularly among the middle class, as one of the most disturbing trends for the future of American democracy.
|
From page 287... ...
writes: This paradox has quite wide-ranging social implications. Hochschild Black and White increasingly diverge in their evaluations of whether the American dream encompasses African Americans .
|
From page 288... ...
Overt racial barriers were falling and I, son of a minister and a schoolteacher, fully credentialed members of Charlotte's Black middle class, thought my future would be free of racism and free of oppression. I believed I was standing at the entrance to the Promised Land.
|
From page 289... ...
. I have a boulder of racial attitudes on my back, and at work I must toil among White people and pretend that the dead weight is not there (p.
|
From page 290... ...
We were a people chronically and institutionally disenfranchised, feeding off the scraps of the educational system, the job market, and any other channels leading to a life of dignity.... Yet, Black people were expected to believe in the American Dream as much as White people did.
|
From page 291... ...
this new type of racial resentment crystallized during the mid- to late 1960s as Whites watched social protest and rising Black militancy pose an increasing challenge to their social order. Although the theory of symbolic racism began as an effort to understand the dynamics of Black-White relations, especially in the political realm, it has been extended to include how Whites respond to Hispanics and to such issues as bilingual education and immigration policies (Huddy and Sears, 1995~.
|
From page 292... ...
Symbolic racism has been measured in a variety of ways, with some recent consensus that it involves resentment of minority demands, resentment of special treatment or consideration of minorities, and a tendency to deny the potency of racial discrimination (Sears, 1988; Kinder and Sanders, 1996~. The theory has been the subject of wide controversy and critical assessment (see, e.g., Bobo, 1983, 1988; Schuman et al., 1985; Weigel and Howes, 1985; Sniderman and Tetlock, 1986; Sidanius et al., 1992; Tetlock, 1994; Wood, 1994~.
|
From page 293... ...
suggest that, "If km Crow racism is no longer seen to serve the defense of economic privilege, then there is no reason to expect that beliefs that justify the stratification order in general will affect it. If elements of laissez-faire racism are seen as defending White economic privilege, then justifications of economic inequality in general should motivate stereotyping and the denial of social responsibility for Blacks' conditions" (pp.
|
From page 294... ...
There is political stagnation over some types of affirmative action, and persistent negative stereotyping of racial minorities; and a wide gulf in perceptions regarding the importance of racial discrimination remains. The level of misunderstanding and miscommunication is, thus, easy to comprehend.
|
From page 295... ...
It is important to seize on the steady commitment to these ideals of racial equality and integration. The risk of failing to do so, is that a new, free-market ideology of racism laissezfaire racism may take hold, potentially worsening an already serious racial divide.
|
From page 296... ...
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45:1196-1210. 1988 Group conflict, prejudice, and the paradox of contemporary racial attitudes.
|
From page 297... ...
Sears 1990 White reactions to Black candidates: When does race matter? Public Opinion Quarterly 54:74-96.
|
From page 298... ...
1996b Race and poverty in America: Public misperceptions and the American news media. Public Opinion Quarterly 60:515-541.
|
From page 299... ...
Sniderman 1997 Racial stereotypes and Whites' political views of Blacks in the context of welfare and crime. American Journal of Political Science 41:30-60.
|
From page 300... ...
Public Opinion Quarterly 61:16-53.
|
From page 301... ...
Public Opinion Quarterly 60:128-158. Steinberg, S
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.