I. Introduction

A. Characteristics of racial attitudes

1. For individuals: emotional, crystallized, powerful.

2. For American society: polarizing and conflictual, throughout American history.

3. Why focus on public opinion, on racial policy attitudes?

II. Trends in whites’ racial attitudes (Schuman, Bobo, and Steeh): How have whites’ racial attitudes changed over the last 50 years or so?

A. Principles: Dramatic decrease in support for segregation and increase in support for integration at the general, abstract level from 1940’s to present. Examples.

B. Implementation: Smaller or declining support for racial equality at the specific level in questions of implementation of principles of racial equality. Examples.

C. Explanations of change.

D. Theories explaining differences in support at general and specific levels:

1. Social desirability bias?

2. Conserv values/Individualism: “Principled conservatism”

3. Self/Group Interest

4. Prejudice

E. How deep are the political divisions between whites and blacks on racial and nonracial issues and perceptions of racial discrimination (Kinder and Sanders and class discussion)?

III. The Reality of Racial Inequality (to be covered later)

IV. Historical background: Civil rights laws ended 2nd class status but did not improve the social and economic status of African Americans: The right to dine and stay in a motel provides little comfort if you can’t pay the bill

A. Is the economic lot of African Americans improving or falling behind?

1. Education:

2. Employment

3. Income: gap is increasing, despite the fact that both races are better off (e.g., Black female heads of household = 57% of white female headed households)

B. Moving ahead since the 1970’s? Increasing class distinctions in the black community

1. Minority of blacks have indeed moved to middle class

2. Great mass of poor blacks remain trapped in poverty

C. Residential segregation: America remains a heavily racially segregated country, especially with respect to ghettoes of major US cities, which can only be described as “hypersegregated.”

a) Causes of racial segregation

(1) Discrimination: Not class, but race, since even middle class blacks find it hard to find housing in white neighborhoods. Lexington (and national) housing discrimination tests using matched pairs seeking housing

(2) White attitudes (prejudice) make segregation involuntary for blacks. Blacks prefer 50-50 split; a majority of whites would feel uncomfortable or would move with any percentage of blacks living in neighborhood, even with controls for cleanliness, upkeep, crime, and neighborhood location.

b) Consequences of segregation: the structural roots of a “culture of poverty”

D. Discrimination in the criminal justice system.

IV. Racial Policy Attitudes

A. Theories of racial policy attitudes

1. No single sovereign theory will do: Theories of Self/group interest, principles, and prejudice.

2. Note: The importance of different explanations may vary across individuals and groups

B. Definitions

1. Prejudice (there are 100’s of definitions in the literature; Sniderman).

2. Stereotypes: a set of beliefs about the personal attributes of a group of people—i.e., a generalization about a group. Cultural versus individual stereotypes. Functions of stereotypes.

3. Discrimination: any negative behavior (response) toward an individual based on his/her membership in a group. Discrimination may arise from prejudice, but not always, as when institutionalized practices discriminate against people or groups even when there is no hostile intent.

4. Racism or sexism can refer to either prejudicial attitudes or to institutional practices that discriminate, even when there is no prejudicial intent (e.g., a height requirement to join the police force may discriminate against Hispanics, Asians, and women).

C. Types of Prejudice: Subtle versus Blatant prejudice and implications for different measures of prejudice

D. Contemporary theories of prejudice (when expressions of old-fashioned or traditional racism prejudice are unfashionable)

1. Inevitability of prejudice: Crosby, et al: Whites who express racial tolerance are hypocrites bowing to social desirability biases.

2. Aversive Racism: Gaertner and Dovidio. Found primarily in liberals. Ambivalence between negative attitudes toward blacks and support for egalitarian principles. Evidence?

3. Symbolic Racism (similar to Kinder and Sanders’ “racial resentment”): Kinder and Sears: blend of prejudice and traditional American values. Found primarily in conservatives. Negative racial feelings rationalized with reference to Protestant ethic, such as individualism and self reliance, the work ethic, obedience and discipline. Problems.

E.Studies of prejudice

1. Kuklinski’s unobtrusive measure: the list experiment. The thesis of the “New South,” convergence with the North.

2. Carmines and Layman: what is the relationship between partisanship and prejudice? Where does prejudice matter more in shaping whites’ support for racial policy and what implications does this have for the parties?

3. Kinder and Sanders, Divided by Color

a) Theories of self-interest, group interest, principles/values, and prejudice (racial resentment). Knowing the roots of racial policy attitudes provides important insight into how to change or mobilize policy attitudes with political appeals.

b) Know the basic contours of the different theories, measures, and important findings, as well as problems with each perspective and its associated measures