Redefining the Problem of Racial Inequality

Abstract

This article examines the connection between the changing definitions of a social problem-racial inequality-and a public policy designed to remedy that problemschool desegregation-focusing on the case of Mobile, Alabama. Survey data show that Whites in Mobile during the 1980s began to settle on one prevailing view of why Black people generally get fewer of the good things in life than Whites-that "Blacks don't try hard enough"-while support for other explanations, such as White discrimination and the lingering burden of historical abuse, declined. During the same period, the Mobile public changed its views of busing for school desegregation to be consistent with the new redefinition of the problem of race. The rapid change in the public's views of race and busing was not explained by objective measures of racial conditions in Mobile or by media coverage of these topics. Instead, the change was a converging social construction by conservative activists nationally and locally operating indirectly through mass media and among people directly through face to face encounters.