Beyond the Pale: White Americans' Conditional Response to the Norm of Racial Equality

Abstract

Most political scientists argue that explicit racial appeals are no longer effective in contemporary American politics. According to this view, such messages are rejected because they are perceived as violating the almost universally accepted norm of racial equality. I reexamine this question with an experimental design, embedded in a nationally representative Internet survey in which respondents were randomly assigned to one of eight treatments. The race of the messenger (black or white) and the type of appeal were manipulated, depending on treatment condition. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, I argue that explicit racial appeals are not necessarily counterproductive, as black candidates who use explicit appeals generate more support among racial conservatives relative to black candidates who use implicit appeals. The results also suggest that White Americans' response to the norm of equality is contingent on the race of the messenger. That is, when the messenger is also white, respondents are more likely to reject the appeal, but when the messenger is black (with an identical message), they do not find the message offensive. Since previous research related to the implicit and explicit racial appeals has typically focused on white messengers, to date we have been unable to detect that the rejection of explicit appeals is moderated by the race of the messenger.