Symbolic racism


Symbolic racism is a coherent belief system that reflects an underlying one-dimensional prejudice towards a racialized ethnicity. Symbolic racism is more of a general term than it is one specifically related to prejudice towards black people. These beliefs may cause the subject to discriminate against black people and to justify this discrimination. Some people do not view symbolic racism as prejudice since it is not linked directly to race but is indirectly linked through social and political issues.
David O. Sears and P.J. Henry characterize symbolic racism as the expression or endorsement of four specific themes or beliefs:
  1. Black people no longer face much prejudice or discrimination.
  2. The failure of black people to progress results from their unwillingness to work hard enough.
  3. Black people are demanding too much too fast.
  4. Black people have gotten more than they deserve.
Symbolic racism is a form of modern implicit racism, as it is more subtle and indirect than more overt forms of racism, such as Jim Crow laws. As symbolic racism develops through socialization and its processes occur without conscious awareness, an individual with symbolically racist beliefs may genuinely oppose racism and believe they are not racist. Symbolic racism is perhaps the most prevalent contemporary form of racism.
The concept of symbolic racism has been criticized for being inconsistent in measurement and concept over time. New experiments also provide evidence that responses do not differ when groups other than African Americans are referenced.

Definition

In the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement, old-fashioned racism declined along with segregation in the United States. Some people believe that newer forms of racism began to replace older forms of racism. Symbolic racism is a term that was coined by David Sears and John McConahay in 1973 to explain why most White Americans supported principles of equality for Black Americans, but less than half were willing to support programs designed to implement these principles. The original theory described three definitive aspects of symbolic racism:
  1. A new form of racism had replaced old-fashioned Jim Crow racism, as it was no longer popular and could no longer be influential in politics, as only a small minority still accepted it.
  2. Opposition to black politicians and racially targeted policies is more influenced by symbolic racism than by any perceived or true threat to whites' own personal lives.
  3. The origins of this form of racism lay in early-socialized negative feelings about blacks associated with traditional conservative values.
The concept of symbolic racism has evolved over time, but most writings currently define symbolic racism as containing four themes:
  1. Racial discrimination is no longer a serious obstacle to black people's prospects for a good life.
  2. Black people's continuing disadvantages are largely due to their unwillingness to work hard enough.
  3. Black people's continuing demands are unwarranted.
  4. Black people's increased advantages are also unwarranted.

    History

The term symbolic racism was first implemented in the 1970s, as a way to describe discrimination against blacks post-Jim Crow. It was used to differentiate between older, more overt forms of racism and newer forms of discrimination. Attacks on busing shortly after integration of schools became widespread have been posited as early examples of symbolic racism. However, Kinder has stated that older forms of racism are still prevalent in modern society.
Following the Jim Crow era, when older, overtly racist business practices were outlawed, some turned to more discreet methods of racism. While realtors in the late 1960s and early 1970s could no longer outright deny selling a home to a black person because they were black, they often gave the black person a higher price point than they would have if they were a white person.
Discrimination also pervaded loan offices, where black people continued to be less likely to get a meeting with a loan officer, less likely to be approved for a loan, and less likely to receive all the necessary information.
In 1981, Howard Schuman replicated a study originally performed in 1950 to test discrimination in New York City restaurants on the Upper East Side. He discovered only minor changes in discrimination levels.

Terminology

The term symbolic racism derives from the fact that the opinions expressed characterize black people as an abstract group rather than as specific individuals. People hold prejudices because of the cultural stereotypes attributed to the group rather than because of any personal individual experience with the group in question. Researchers have given the concept of symbolic racism many different names, usually to emphasize one aspect over another. These names include modern racism, racial resentment, and laissez-faire ''racism''. While slight differences exist between the different terms, all share the same bottom line of prejudice towards black people.
While similar in nature, symbolic racism is distinguished from aversive racism based on the relationships between the defining characteristics. Aversive racism involves "separate, disassociated positive and negative components, which are in conflict, and thus, may sometimes be experienced as ambivalence." Symbolic racism, on the other hand, "reflects the unique assimilation of individualistic values and negative racial affect." The components of aversive racism remain disassociated within the individual; whereas, the components of symbolic racism blend to produce racial attitudes. While both types of racism predict similar behavior, they are the consequences of different processes.

Causes

Whitley and Kite cite six underlying factors that contribute to symbolic racism. They are to this day believed to have been some of the biggest influences on modern racism.
  1. Implicitly anti-black affect and negative stereotypes.
  2. Racialized belief in traditional values.
  3. Belief in equality of opportunity.
  4. Low belief in equality of outcome.
  5. Group self-interest.
  6. Low knowledge of black people.
According to Whitley and Kite, those who hold symbolic racist beliefs tend to hold implicitly negative attitudes, most likely gained in childhood, towards black people that may or may not be conscious. These attitudes may not be characterized by outright hatred but rather fear, disgust, anger, contempt, etc. In addition, those who hold symbolically racist beliefs may also believe in traditional American values such as hard work, individuality, and self-restraint. However, these beliefs become racialized.
Many people believe that black individuals do not hold or act in accordance with these values but that they instead rely on public assistance, seek government favors, and act impulsively. As Whitley and Kite note, "The fact that White people also accept public assistance, seek government favors, and act impulsively is not relevant to people with symbolic prejudice; it is their perception of Black people's behavior that they focus on." Furthermore, those with symbolic prejudice tend to believe in the equality of opportunity, which includes access to resources such as education, housing, and employment. However, they tend not to believe in equality of outcome. This explains how people can support the principle of racial equality but not support initiatives to achieve it, such as affirmative action. Government intervention when individuals do not have the same talent, effort, or historical background would violate traditional values of equality of opportunity. Thus, "people can simultaneously endorse equality of opportunity and reject government intervention to bring about equality of outcome." Finally, Whitley and Kite state most whites do not have extensive personal experience with black people, so the negative stereotypes they hold about blacks do not have the opportunity to be dispelled.

Evidence

Measures

Much of the initial research conducted by researchers on symbolic racism utilized McConahay's modern racism scale. However, citing a number of measurement problems, Sears and Henry published the Symbolic Racism 2000 Scale in 2002 in the journal Political Psychology. It consists of a series of statements relating to race and politics in which participants must state their degree of agreement on a scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". Statements included on surveys by the American National Election Studies and most commonly used in political science research include:
  • Irish, Italians, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors.
  • Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for Blacks to work their way out of the lower class.
  • Over the past few years, Blacks have gotten less than they deserve.
  • It's really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if Blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as Whites.
This updated scale attempted to address the issues with previous forms of measurement including internal reliability, construct validity, predictive validity, and discriminant validity, and generalizability.

Examples

Bobocel et al. found that prejudice can be rationalized as a concern for justice. Opposition to preferential affirmative action programs was uniquely predicted by an individual's belief in merit principles. That is, regardless of prejudice level, individuals tend to oppose preferential treatment programs because they violate traditional norms of meritocracy. However, the higher an individual's level of prejudice, the more likely he was to construe an undefined affirmative action program as violating the merit principle and, in turn, oppose the undefined affirmative action program. These high-prejudice individuals were able to rationalize their prejudice as a concern for justice, although no traditional justice norms had been explicitly violated. In this way, symbolic racism functions through rationalization as a concern for traditional norms without conscious awareness.
Public opinion researchers polled White Americans in the early 1970s on their backing for racial equality and their support for government intervention that would enforce that equality. The results revealed high levels of support from White Americans, ranging from 75% to nearly 100%, regarding the principles for school integration, equal opportunity employment, and open housing. Support from the same White Americans was significantly lower regarding the implementation of more abstract principles at approximately 50%.
College students who had completed a modern-symbolic prejudice measure early in the semester evaluated the résumés of 10 job applicants. The applicants consisted of three qualified black people, two qualified white people, and five unqualified white people. The students were split into two groups - one containing students rated high in modern-symbolic prejudice and one containing students rated low in this same attribute. Each student received a memo from the president of the company. Half of the students received memos in which the president of the company asked the student to abstain from hiring a worker of a minority group because the person hired would be dealing mainly with white employees. The memo for the second group did not contain this message. The group that did not receive any instructions from the president of the company recommended a black candidate 61% of the time, regardless of the individual's modern-symbolic prejudice rating. In the group that had received justification from the president to abstain from minority hiring, 37% of the students that were low in modern-symbolic prejudice recommended a black candidate, whereas only 18% of the students high in modern-symbolic prejudice recommended a black candidate. These results suggest that symbolic prejudice is expressed most strongly when non-explicitly racist justifications are given for discriminatory action.