First of all, apologies to Racism Review for lifting the whole post. I can't come up with a summary that will do it justice. Secondly, I found the first research paper mentioned (“‘I Am Not A Racist But’; Mapping White College Students’ Racial Ideology in the U.S.A.,”) sitting on the net, pretty as you please. I'm not linking it because you're supposed to subscribe to Discourse and Society to get it, but anyone who is interested can email me, or better, google the whole title and you'll find it yourself.
Naive Political Commentaries and White Racist Performances
Posted by Joe on Apr 9th, 2008
Numerous observers of the current political scene, liberal and conservative, seem to think that white racial views are much more liberal than they were a decade or two back and that a political candidate like Senator Barack Obama will not face serious racism if he is the Democratic party nominee. Indeed, many argue white racism is now dead or nearly dead.
However, much social science research suggests clearly this not correct.
Indeed, it is in my view rather naïve and far too influenced by the colorblind rhetoric now dominant across this society. Let us consider just two research studies. Research by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Tyrone Forman (“‘I Am Not A Racist But’; Mapping White College Students’ Racial Ideology in the U.S.A.,” Discourse and Society, 2000; see also here) on white students at three major university campuses in the West, South, and Midwest indicates that racial attitudes expressed by whites on short-answer survey items are often quite different from those expressed to similar questions requiring more detailed commentary. For example, on a brief survey item 80 percent of 451 responding college students said that they approved of marriages between blacks and whites. However, when a smaller group of comparable students were interviewed in depth this figure dropped to about one-third. (Ninety percent of this smaller group had shown approval on the survey question.) When given more time to explain their views, the majority of white students expressed significant reservations about marriage across the color line. A similar pattern was found for a question about affirmative action. These whites frequently used a variety of hedging phrases (for example, “I agree and disagree”) to disguise or play down their negative views on various racial issue. Thus, the in-depth interviews strongly indicated that a majority of well-educated whites still hold significantly negative attitudes on issues like racial intermarriage.
