Symbolic racism

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: • 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. • 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. • 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: • Racial discrimination is no longer a serious obstacle to black people's prospects for a good life. • Black people's continuing disadvantages are largely due to their unwillingness to work hard enough. • Black people's continuing demands are unwarranted. • 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. 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 ("as in the anonymous 'they' in 'if they would only…'") 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. 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. • Implicitly anti-black affect and negative stereotypes. • Racialized belief in traditional values. • Belief in equality of opportunity. • Low belief in equality of outcome. • Group self-interest. • 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 (usually in stereotypic terms) 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 (1986) modern racism scale (MRS). However, citing a number of measurement problems, Sears and Henry published the Symbolic Racism 2000 (SR2K) 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". 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. Other applications While symbolic racism was originally conceptualized as a prejudice specifically against black people in the United States, scholars have expanded the concept to apply to other groups and locales. In the United States, research has been conducted on symbolic racism as it relates to Latinos and Asians, as well as modern sexism, anti-fat bias, and heterosexism. In addition, Fu found that symbolic racism was the strongest predictor of white as well as Asian and Latino opposition to affirmative action after controlling for biological racism and ideology. In this context, the Australian version of the symbolic racism construct is defined as "the use of affective responses and beliefs that are well accepted within a dominant majority racial group as justifying its advantaged position". The response choices for the questions given to his participants were dichotomous for each of these variables. The choices were: • People from [these] minority groups abuse the system of social benefits. • The religious practices of people from [these] minority groups threaten our way of life. The findings suggest that perceived cultural threats appeared to have a strong sway on the attitudes toward the European Union. It was concluded that attitudes toward the European Union were largely based on a general hostility towards other cultures. ==Consequences==

Symbolic racism may have implications for legal policies. Green et al. (2006) found a positive correlation between symbolic racism and more severe crime policies, such as capital punishment and three-strikes laws, and a negative relationship with policies that are intended to assist criminals such as inmate education. Individual prejudices and opposition to programs to eliminate inequality of outcomes may contribute to institutional racism, which in turn leads to continued racial inequality. Reyna et al. (2009) found that negative attitudes towards rap music are associated with the idea that African Americans are to blame for their economic plights. The type of rap that was looked at was categorized as gangster rap, which is notorious for its violent undertones and explicit language. Additionally, in their second study, they found that anti-rap attitudes are also associated with discrimination towards African Americans. Conversely, when looking at other predominantly black genres of music, such as jazz or gospel music, the same correlations were not found. ==Criticisms and controversies==

A major criticism is that new experimental studies show that respondents do not answer the questions presented in the paper by Sears and Henry (2002) differently when groups other than African Americans are mentioned in the survey questions. This potentially undermines a primary claim made by Sears and Henry - that their measure of symbolic racism is a blend of "anti-Black affect" and "conservatism". Enos and Carney (2018) write: He argues that social scientists may have embraced forms of modern racism too quickly, which could have negative impacts on minorities by helping to maintain discriminatory social institutions. ==See also==