Political and Racial Tolerance
Lecture Outline
Racial Attitudes
A.
Characteristics of racial attitudes
1.
For individuals: emotional, crystallized, powerful.
2.
For American
society: polarizing, conflictual,
throughout American history.
3.
Why focus on public
opinion, on racial policy attitudes?
A. Principles: Dramatic decrease in support for
segregation and increase in support for integration at the general, abstract
level from 1940’s to present. Examples:
same schools, equal jobs, Black candidate, and Intermarriage, though
still evidence of intolerance.
B.
Implementation: Smaller
or declining support for racial equality at the specific level in questions of
implementation of principles of racial equality. Examples: jobs, public
accommodations, jobs, housing, busing, affirmative action, and so on.
C. Explanations of change.
D.
Theories explaining
differences in support at general and specific levels:
1.
Social desirability
bias?
2.
Conserv
values/Individualism: “Principled conservatism”
3.
Self/Group Interest
4.
Prejudice
E.
How deep are the
political divisions between whites and blacks?
1.
A political cleavage
with no equal, not due to socioeconomic differences between the races (e.g.,
issues in Kinder and Sanders, ch. 2; beliefs of fairness in the criminal
justice system).
2.
Greatest on explicitly
racial issues, but substantial on other issues as well
A.
Is the economic lot of
African Americans improving or falling behind?
1.
Education:
2.
Employment
3.
Income: gap is
increasing, despite the fact that both races are better off (e.g., Black female
heads of household = 57% of white female headed households)
B.
Moving ahead since the
1970’s? Increasing class distinctions in the black community
1.
Minority of blacks have
indeed moved to middle class
2.
Great mass of poor
blacks remain trapped in poverty
C.
Residential
segregation: America remains a heavily
racially segregated country, especially with respect to ghettoes of major US
cities, which can only be described as “hypersegregated.”
a)
Causes of racial
segregation
(1)
Discrimination: Not
class, but race, since even middle class blacks find it hard to find housing in
white neighborhoods. Lexington (and national) housing discrimination tests
using matched pairs seeking housing
(2)
White attitudes
(prejudice) make segregation involuntary for blacks. Blacks prefer 50-50 split; a majority of whites would feel
uncomfortable or would move with any percentage of blacks living in
neighborhood, even with controls for cleanliness, upkeep, crime, and
neighborhood location.
b)
Consequences of
segregation: the structural roots of a “culture of poverty”
D.
Discrimination in the
criminal justice system.
A. Theories of racial policy attitudes
1. No single sovereign theory will do: Theories of
Self/group interest, principles, and prejudice.
2. Note: The importance of different explanations may
vary across individuals and groups
B. What is prejudice?
(there are 100’s of definitions in the literature)
C. Definition: an
unjustifiable negative attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice is an
attitude, which comprises feelings, beliefs and inclinations to act (e.g., disliking group X, and believing they
are ignorant and dangerous, makes it more likely to behave toward them in a
discriminatory manner.)
1. Feelings:
Pettigrew (1975): “Many
southerners have confessed to me that even though in their minds they no longer
feel prejudice toward blacks, they still feel squeamish when they shake hands
with a black. These feelings are left
over from what they learned in their families as children.”
2. Cognitions:
Stereotypes. To stereotype is to
generalize to simplify the world (or to justify discrimination). Problem with stereotypes is their
inaccuracy, overgeneralization, and resistant to change.
3. Discrimination is a negative behavior that may arise
from prejudice, but not always, as when institutionalized practices
discriminate against people or groups even when there is no hostile
intent.
4. Racism or sexism can refer to either prejudicial
attitudes or to institutional practices that discriminate, even when there is
no prejudicial intent (e.g., a height requirement to join the police force may
discriminate against Hispanics, Asians, and women).
D. Types of Prejudice: More Subtle versus Blatant
prejudice when it:
1. is applied to more intimate social contact
2. is measured more unobtrusively (e.g., randomized
experiments)
3. can hide behind the screen of some other motive
E. Contemporary theories of prejudice when expressions of
prejudice are unfashionable
1. Inevitability of prejudice: Crosby, et al: Whites who
express racial tolerance are hypocrites bowing to social desirability biases.
2. Patricia Devine’s dissociative theory of prejudice.
Even people low in prejudice must consciously control their prejudicial
responses. All whites have knowledge of negative cultural stereotypes of blacks
which may be activated automatically
and involuntarily in the presence of blacks or racial symbols. And even people who reject cultural
stereotypes in their personal beliefs
(i.e., are low in prejudice) are as susceptible to racially intolerant
responses as are individuals who accept negative stereotypes when they are
unconsciously “primed” to think about negative cultural stereotypes of
blacks. To avoid prejudicial responses,
one must consciously control them, like a bad habit.
3. Modern or Symbolic Racism (similar to Kinder and
Sanders’ “racial resentment”): Kinder and Sears: blend of prejudice and traditional American values. Negative
racial feelings come to influence new issues of the era (e.g., busing,
affirmative action), including ones
that are not overtly racial on their face, such as crime, welfare,
etc. Find good excuse for prejudice and
racism: “I’m not prejudiced, I dislike
blacks because they are violating such traditional Amer. values of Protestant ethic,
such as individualism and self reliance, the work ethic, obedience and discipline.”
a) Problems: Tautological? Vague? Much like traditional
prejudice?
4. Other measures of prejudice:
a) Stereotypes:
less subtle, more direct, but still find pervasive prejudice (negative
stereotypes) among a minority of whites
b) Kuklinski’s unobtrusive measure: the list
experiment. The thesis of the “New
South,” convergence with the North.
(1) Questions
(2) List experiment as an unobtrusive measure of
prejudice.
(3) Source of greater prejudice in the South: Education?
Age? Gender? Why?
VI. Kinder and Sanders, Divided by Color
A. Theories of self-interest, group interest, principles/values,
and prejudice (racial resentment). Knowing the roots of racial policy attitudes
provides important insight into how to change or mobilize policy attitudes with
political appeals.
B. Know the theories, theorists, definitions, measures,
and important findings, as well as problems with each perspective and its associated
measures.