Old-fashioned Racism Research Articles

From old-fashioned to offensive racism: How social norms determine the measurement object of prejudice questionnaires

ABSTRACT Recently, an increasing number of scholars have been showing interest in old-fashioned racism again. While recent studies on old-fashioned racism apparently increase our knowledge of this psychological theory of racism, the studies actually shed light on a different type of racism, namely offensive racism. The aim of this text is to argue that psychological theories of racism, like old-fashioned racism and modern racism, depend on societies’ social norms. I will show that questionnaires are highly sensitive to social norms, and if there is change in social norms, the original measurement object alters. The theory of old-fashioned racism implicitly assumes agents that follow (or conform to) the social norm to behave prejudiced. Today, however, this social norm does not exist in Western societies. If agents express the same prejudices today, they indicate their willingness to breach the social norm to behave unprejudiced. Thereby, classic old-fashioned racism measures reflect a new kind of racism today.

Review: Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics, by Christopher D. DeSante and Candis Watts Smith

Review: <i>Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics</i>, by Christopher D. DeSante and Candis Watts Smith

Three clusters of content-audience associations in expression of racial prejudice while consuming online television news.

It is well investigated that the expression of racial prejudice is often induced by news coverage on the internet, and the exposure to media contributes to the cultivation of long-term prejudice. However, there is a lack of information regarding the immediate effects of news delivered through television or television-like media on the expression of racial prejudice. This study provides a framework for understanding such effects by focusing on content-audience associations using the logs of an "online television" service, which provides television-like content and user experiences. With these logs, we found an association between the news-watching and comment-posting behaviors. Consequently, logs relevant to two distinct forms of racism, modern and old-fashioned racism, were extracted. Using mathematical modeling, which considers the different levels of program inducements to racist expression, personal inclinations of audiences to racism, and certainty of prediction of audience behaviors, we found three associative patterns between the news programs and audiences. The relevance of the topics covered to the basic beliefs of each form of racism was characterized into three clusters: expression as a reaction to news that is directly relevant to the basic beliefs of racism with weak inducements by non-bigots, minority abuse by distorting the meanings of news content indirectly relevant to the beliefs but with strong inducements by audiences with a strong bias, and racial toxic opinions independent of the news content by clear bigots. Our findings provide implications for inhibiting the expression of online prejudice based on the characteristics of these patterns.

We Need to Talk About Racism-In All of Its Forms-To Understand COVID-19 Disparities.

Purpose: Racism is an essential factor to understand racial health disparities in infection and mortality due to COVID-19 and must be thoroughly integrated into any successful public health response. But highlighting the effect of racism generally does not go far enough toward understanding racial/ethnic health disparities or advocating for change; we must interrogate the various forms of racism in the United States, including behaviors and practices that are not recognized by many as racism.Methods: In this article, we explore the prevalence and demographic distribution of various forms of racism in the United States and how these diverse racial ideologies are potentially associated with racialized responses to the COVID-19 crisis.Results: We find that among white Americans, more than a quarter express traditional racist attitudes, whereas more than half endorse more contemporary and implicit forms of racist ideology. Each of these types of racism helps us explain profound disparities related to COVID-19.Conclusions: Despite a robust literature documenting persistent patterns of racial disparities in the United States, a focus on the role that various forms of racism play in perpetuating these disparities is absent. These distinctions are essential to realizing health equity and countering disparities in COVID-19 and other health outcomes among people of color in the United States.

PUFF, PUFF, PASS

AbstractThis research aims to enhance our understanding of the relationship between racial prejudice and White Americans’ views on cannabis legalization. The recent legalization of recreational cannabis in a handful of states, along with many other states legalizing medical cannabis in recent years, has catapulted the flowering plant back into the spotlight and nightly news cycles. Given the historically racist propaganda used to criminalize the plant, it follows that Whites’ support for legalization may be associated with racial prejudice. Using data from the General Social Survey data from 1972–2018, we find that different forms of racial prejudice have a negative effect on Whites’ support for cannabis legalization generally. Additionally, as the negative effect of overt, old-fashioned racism diminishes over time and across birth cohorts it is supplanted by the more subtle laissez-faire racism. In conclusion, we discuss the implication of the relationship between racial prejudice and views on marijuana for the increasingly complicated racial dynamics surrounding cannabis legalization.

A Matter of Principle? On the Relationship Between Racial Resentment and Ideology

Though most scholars of race and politics agree that old-fashioned racism largely gave way to a new symbolic form of racism over the course of the last half century, there is still disagreement about how to best empirically capture this new form of racism. Racial resentment, perhaps the most popular operationalization of symbolic racism, has been criticized for its overlap with liberal-conservative ideology. Critics argue that racially prejudiced responses to the items that compose the racial resentment scale are observationally equivalent to the responses that conservatives would provide. In this manuscript, I examine the racial resentment scale for differential item functioning (DIF) by level of adherence to ideological principles using the 1992, 2004, and 2016 American National Election Studies. I find that responses to some of the racial resentment items are, indeed, affected by ideology. However, the problem is largely confined to 2016 and more egregious with respect to ideological self-identifications than adherence to ideological principles. Moreover, even after correcting for DIF, the racial resentment scale serves as a strong predictor of attitudes about racial issues.

“Racists,” “Class Anxieties,” Hegemonic Racism, and Democracy in Trump’s America

In this address, I challenge dominant narratives explaining the rise of Trumpism in America. Specifically, I dispute four ideas that have emerged to account for Trump’s election. First, I suggest that understanding his election as the product of the political activities of the “racists” severely limits our understanding of racism as a collective phenomenon. Second, I question the notion that Trump’s working class support was due to “class anxieties.” Third, I argue that despite the rise in old-fashioned racism in Trump’s America, the new racism and its ideology of color-blindness are still hegemonic. Last, I ask analysts and activists alike to realize that the fight for democracy in the turbulent times we are living cannot be equated with an effort to return to “politics as usual,” politics that have maintained the matrix of domination in place.

Old-Fashioned Racism, Contemporary Islamophobia, and the Isolation of Muslim Americans in the Age of Trump

AbstractWhile extant research has documented the existence of negative attitudes toward Muslim Americans, it is unclear whether old-fashioned racism (OFR) is at the root of contemporary Islamophobia, and whether beliefs in the inherent inferiority of Muslims are linked to support for political actors and policies that aim to further isolate them. Bringing to bear a unique dataset of 1,044 white, black, Latino, and Asian participants, we demonstrate that a nontrivial portion of survey respondents make blatantly racist evaluations and rate Muslim Americans as the least “evolved” group. Next, we illustrate that these dehumanizing attitudes are strongly linked to modern objections of Muslim Americans, which we measure with a new Muslim American resentment scale (MAR). Our mediation analysis reveals that the relationship between OFR, support for President Trump, and various policy positions is powerfully mediated by MAR. These results suggest that the relevance of OFR in contemporary politics should not easily be dismissed, and that the literature on racial attitudes, which has predominantly focused on the Black-white dichotomy, should also be extended to appraisals of Muslim Americans.

Interpersonal contact and attitudes towards indigenous peoples in Canada's prairie cities

ABSTRACTResearch finds that non-indigenous peoples often hold negative racial attitudes towards indigenous peoples. Contact theory suggests that interpersonal contact can positively influence majority group members’ attitudes regarding minority group members, raising the question of whether indigenous population growth in cities will alter non-indigenous peoples’ attitudes. Using original 2014 survey data, this paper examines the relationship between interpersonal contact and racial attitudes in Canadian prairie cities. The analysis finds that while personal ties to aboriginal peoples are correlated with lower new and old-fashioned racism scores, general contact with aboriginal peoples only correlates with old-fashioned racism scores. As such, growing urban indigenous populations – and thus increased aboriginal-non-aboriginal general contact – alone should not be expected to result in positive racial attitudes. This research advances understanding of contact theory by considering how education interacts with interpersonal contact, and informs on-going dialogue about current racial relations between non-indigenous and indigenous peoples in Canadian prairie cities.

Does Cognitive Depletion Shape Bias Detection for Minority Group Members?

Previous research has explored how context, characteristics of the target, or a perceiver's cognitive state may affect person perception and impression formation. The present work extends theory on person perception and illuminates factors that determine when Blacks perceive a White target as prejudiced. Building from research suggesting that modern racism may require more cognitive resources to discern than old-fashioned racism, participants were first cognitively depleted (or not). Next, they were asked to watch a video in which a White target displayed cues consistent with modern or old-fashioned racism toward a Black partner during an interracial interaction. Consistent with hypotheses, non-depleted Black participants perceived both the modern and old-fashioned racist as equally prejudiced. However, depletion moderated Black participants' bias detection such that they perceived the modern racist as less prejudiced than did the non-depleted Black participants. Depleted and non-depleted Black participan...

Reliability and Validity of a Scale to Measure Prejudice toward Old Order Amish

Numerous studies have examined prejudice in regard to race, age, sexual orientation, and gender, among others. However, there remains a paucity of research on prejudice toward Christian religious groups. In particular, prejudice towards one of America’s fastest growing religious groups, the Old Order Amish, is rarely examined. Using social categorization theory and based on McConahay’s modern and old-fashioned racism scale, an “Attitude Toward Amish” scale is developed and tested. Factor analysis revealed one dominant component and high internal reliability. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for future research of this rapidly growing population.

The Return of Old-Fashioned Racism to White Americans’ Partisan Preferences in the Early Obama Era

Old-fashioned racism (OFR) was unrelated to white Americans’ partisan preferences throughout the post-civil rights era. This study argues OFR could return to white partisanship following decades of dormancy because of Obama’s presidency. After first demonstrating that such attitudes were significantly stronger predictors of opposition to Obama than ideologically similar white Democrats, I support that spillover hypothesis with the following evidence: opposition to interracial dating was correlated with white partisanship in 2009 despite being unrelated to party identification in 12 earlier surveys; moreover, evaluations of Obama completely mediated that relationship between OFR and partisanship; old-fashioned racism predicted changes in white panelists’ partisanship between 2006 and 2011; these attitudes were also a stronger determinant of midterm vote preferences in 2010 than they were in 2006, with that relationship once again mediated by President Obama; and experimentally connecting Obama to congressional candidates significantly increased the relationship between OFR and 2010 preferences.

Social Dominance Orientation

Social dominance orientation (SDO) is one of the most powerful predictors of intergroup attitudes and behavior. Although SDO works well as a unitary construct, some analyses suggest it might consist of two complementary dimensions--SDO-Dominance (SDO-D), or the preference for some groups to dominate others, and SDO-Egalitarianism (SDO-E), a preference for nonegalitarian intergroup relations. Using seven samples from the United States and Israel, the authors confirm factor-analytic evidence and show predictive validity for both dimensions. In the United States, SDO-D was theorized and found to be more related to old-fashioned racism, zero-sum competition, and aggressive intergroup phenomena than SDO-E; SDO-E better predicted more subtle legitimizing ideologies, conservatism, and opposition to redistributive social policies. In a contentious hierarchical intergroup context (the Israeli-Palestinian context), SDO-D better predicted both conservatism and aggressive intergroup attitudes. Fundamentally, these analyses begin to establish the existence of complementary psychological orientations underlying the preference for group-based dominance and inequality.

Fiction by Established Authors

Fiction by Established Authors Cynthia Sugars (bio) Michael Ignatieff once wrote, 'We could face the worst if we simply renounced our yearning for certainty. But who among us is capable of that renunciation?' (The Needs of Strangers). This quotation is appropriate for many of the Canadian novels published in 2008, though whether they [End Page 208] point to the power of yearning or to a renunciation of it is unclear. Indeed, many of the novels of the current year are poised at that moment of the not-quite renunciation. They hover on the edge of an optimism that tantalizes yet is perpetually deferred. More than a hundred and fifty years ago, Henry David Thoreau observed that the great mass of people appeared to be leading lives of quiet desperation. It probably comes as no surprise to hear that this adage is still true and that, indeed, these struggles remain at the heart of contemporary fiction. At times the desperation is not so quiet. The novels published over the past year by many of Canada's established authors focus on the horrifying spectre of endless broken lives - victims of sexual abuse, poverty, racism, physical injury, terminal illness, infidelity, murder, depression, and suicide - but these more jagged examples of human suffering are balanced by endless numbers of characters whose troubles are more ineffable and whose humanity is tested by their relation to these damaged lives. The stories of these badly scarred, dysfunctional lives are often less interesting in themselves than in their effect on others; they are the human catalysts whose plight sets in motion the more complicated struggles of those who must bear witness to their pain. It is difficult to pinpoint the emotional register of many of these novels, which may be what makes them especially unsettling. Their conclusions are often tentative, provisional, ambiguous, pointing towards a vague promise that follows the act of witnessing. Given the sorts of spiritual thirst and makeshift redemption that run through all of these novels, it may not be surprising that religion plays a major role in some of them, but it is often more closely associated with the alienation that characters struggle with than with the salvation they sometimes stumble onto. Following upon the success of his 2005 Giller Prize-winning novel The Time in Between, David Bergen's The Retreat chronicles the story of Emma Byrd, who drags her family to 'The Retreat,' a two-bit cult run by a self-styled guru prophet known as The Doctor who spouts New Age truisms and, it quickly becomes obvious, considers sex with the women who arrive as part of his mission. Emma, whose utter selfishness is wonderfully dressed up as spiritual need, is the sort of character whose vacuous self-indulgence would be easy to overdo, but Bergen makes the most of the story by depicting her with admirable restraint. Her husband, a decent man who wants nothing to do with the place, but who tries to hold his family together by indulging his wife's whims and covering for her when she decides to abandon the family at The Retreat and abruptly flee to Chicago, is a much sadder but far more compelling character. Their story converges with a very different tale when the Byrds' teenage daughter, Lizzie, meets a young Native teenager named Raymond. The Retreat opens with a bleak account of old-fashioned racism that makes Emma Byrd's story seem all the more pathetic. [End Page 209] Raymond, having become involved with a local white girl named Alice, is picked up by her uncle, Earl, who happens to be a policeman. Offended that Raymond should have dared to cross the line that ought to protect girls like Alice, Earl detains Raymond on spurious charges, loads him into Raymond's motorboat, and leaves him on a remote island in Lake of the Woods to fend for himself just as the first snows of winter begin to fly. Raymond survives when a barge carrying propane to cottages spots him, but not until he's had to fend for himself for more than a week. What is most chilling, however, is how little comes of the event. Raymond understands local politics too...

Racism in comedy reappraised: Back to Little England?

ABSTRACTThis article was originally researched to consider issues of taste in the self-proclaimed ‘New British Comedy’ (circa 2003–2009) exemplified by television, film and stage shows of the previous decade, such as Little Britain, Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat and Mock the Week. Considering the contemporary and continuing debate concerning the divide between satire and inappropriate racist offence, the article now considers and focuses on reappraising racism in comedy, with particular reference to the trends that emerged in the Little Britain series of this era. As American commentators mark the fiftieth anniversary of the original publication in 1960 of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (1989) through a critical reflection on racism in contemporary American culture, the authors believe it is timely to revisit the ways in which comedy reflects broader British attitudes towards race and racial stereotypes. A number of traditional social psychological theories will be used to explain why racist humour is still prevalent in Britain's multicultural society. In particular, the article will seek to illustrate the ways in which developments in contemporary comedy reflect the move from what is termed ‘old-fashioned racism’ to what Gaertner and Dovidio (1986) term ‘aversive racism’. The article will then develop the argument to illustrate the ways in which the interactional qualities that exemplify ‘aversive racism’ are manifested in the broader socio-political context as ‘principled racism’ that warrants racist humour through the rhetoric of ‘race-blind’ liberal principles (Sniderman et al. 1991).Early drafts of a paper on which this article was based were presented at Leicester De Montfort University Symposium (2008), The International Federation for Theatre Research Conference Political Performance Working Group in Stellenbosch, South Africa (2007) and The Salford International Comedy Conference (2007).

The Development and Validation of a Measure of Racial Justice Perceptions

We report three studies that develop and test a new measure of racial attitudes, the Racial Justice Scale (RJS). The concept of racial justice was developed inductively in Study 1 by means of a thematic analysis of existing measures of racial attitudes as well as a database of over 7 000 comments about racism and discrimination, taken from South African newspapers. Studies 2 and 3 investigate the reliability and validity of the RJS, and compare it with Duckitt's measure of subtle racism. The data suggest that the preliminary RJS, reported in Appendix 2, is a unidimensional and reliable measure. Although the two studies provide a mixed picture of its correlates, it does measure a different construct of racial attitudes to Duckitt's scale, which is strongly correlated with old-fashioned racism. Participation in all the studies was done on a voluntary basis, with full informed consent of the participants.

Understanding the Relations Between Different Forms of Racial Prejudice: A Cognitive Consistency Perspective

Research on racial prejudice is currently characterized by the existence of diverse concepts (e.g., implicit prejudice, old-fashioned racism, modern racism, aversive racism) that are not well integrated from a general perspective. The present article proposes an integrative framework for these concepts employing a cognitive consistency perspective. Specifically, it is argued that the reliance on immediate affective reactions toward racial minority groups in evaluative judgments about these groups depends on the consistency of this evaluation with other relevant beliefs pertaining to central components of old-fashioned, modern, and aversive forms of prejudice. A central prediction of the proposed framework is that the relation between "implicit" and "explicit" prejudice should be moderated by the interaction of egalitarianism-related, nonprejudicial goals and perceptions of discrimination. This prediction was confirmed in a series of three studies. Implications for research on prejudice are discussed.

RACIAL ATTITUDES AMONG SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: A FOLLOW-UP STUDY AFTER FOUR YEARS

In 2002, moderately high levels of modern and old-fashioned racism were documented in a representative sample of 433 students registered in undergraduate courses at a South African university (Pillay &amp; Collings, 2004). In 2006, this survey was replicated using identical methods of data collection and a sample which was representative of university enrolments for 2006 in terms of gender and race: N = 543, gender = 50% female; race = black (40%), Indian (40%), white (17%), colored (3%). Over the four-year period, there was a significant increase in mean item-scores for old-fashioned racism [M = 1.95 vs. 2.15; F(1,971) = 15.16, p &lt; .01], and this finding was supported by a significant study x race interaction, F(3,971) = 6.33, p &lt; .05. Mean item scores increased significantly over time among Indians (2.11 vs. 2.29) but not among blacks (1.74 vs. 1.76), coloreds (2.01 vs. 2.04), or whites (2.33 vs. 2.35). A significant increase in levels of modern racism over the four-year period [M = 2.74 vs. 3.10; F(1,971) = 8.48, p &lt; .01] was indicated by a significant study x race interaction, F(3,971) = 7.31, p &lt; .05, with mean item scores increasing significantly over time among Indians (2.94 vs. 3.62) and whites (3.00 vs. 3.58) but not among blacks (2.04 vs. 2.06) or coloreds (2.47 vs. 2.49). Together these findings suggest that both overt and covert forms of racism persist, with levels of racism varying as a function of racial group membership.

Examining the principles in principled conservatism: The role of responsibility stereotypes as cues for deservingness in racial policy decisions.

Why do educated conservatives oppose affirmative action? Those in the "principled conservatism" camp say opposition is based on principled judgments of fairness about the policies. Others, however, argue that opposition is based on racism. The present article offers an alternative perspective that may reconcile these contradictory points of view. In 2 studies, the authors show 2 major findings: (a) that conservatives oppose affirmative action more for Blacks than for other groups, in this case women, and (b) that the relationship between conservatism and affirmative action attitudes is mediated best by group-based stereotypes that offer deservingness information and not by other potential mediators like old-fashioned racism or the perceived threat that affirmative action poses to oneself. The authors conclude that educated conservatives are indeed principled in their opposition to affirmative action, but those principles are group based not policy based.

Modern Prejudice Toward Gay Men and Lesbian Women: Assessing the Viability of a Measure of Modern Homonegative Attitudes Within an Irish Context

The authors examined the psychometric properties of the gay and lesbian versions of the Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS-G and MHS-L) in samples of heterosexual Irish university students (Ns=179 and 353). Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the MHS-G and MHS-L were unidimensional and factorially distinct from a well-established measure of old-fashioned homonegativity (Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Scale [ATLG]). Alpha coefficients for both versions of the MHS were good (range = .81 to .86), with 95% confidence intervals suggesting that unsatisfactory levels of scale score reliability (i.e., alpha values < .70) were relatively implausible. As hypothesized, participants' level of modern homonegativity correlated positively with their levels of old-fashioned and modem racism, patriotism, nationalism, religious fundamentalism, social dominance, and perceived political conservatism. The authors also observed a substantial inverse correlation between modern prejudice toward sexual minorities and support for their human rights. Finally, a series of multiple regression analyses indicated that, despite their interrelatedness, modern and old-fashioned homonegativity, particularly as they pertain to gay men, possess differential predictors. Limitations of the current series of studies and the need to conduct further research on attitudes toward sexual minorities within an Irish context are also discussed.