How White Attitudes Vary with the Racial Composition of Local Populations: Numbers Count

Abstract

This research focuses on the white people's reactions to the racial composition of the local population. Multilevel modeling is applied to a micro/macro data file that links 1990 General Social Survey responses to census information about respondents' localities. On summary scales representing traditional prejudice, opposition to race-targeting, and policy-related beliefs, white negativity swells as the local black population share expands. Among non-Southern white, a 10-point rise in the local percentage of black brings an increase in traditional prejudice greater than the decrease in prejudice that comes with three additional years of education. South/non-South differences in the white people's views about black are generally reduced to about one-half of their original size and fall short of statistical significance when local racial composition is controlled. Interestingly, concentrations of local Asian American and Latino populations do not engender white antipathy toward these groups. If the white people's reactions to the presence of black is a threat response, the specific dynamics of this threat await description