Trumping the equality norm? Presidential tweets and revealed racial attitudes

2020 ◽  
pp. 146144482093629
Author(s):  
Nicolas M Anspach
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
Willingness To Use

One noteworthy characteristic of Donald Trump’s candidacy and subsequent presidency is his willingness to use racial rhetoric. This is especially the case on Twitter, where he communicates directly with millions of followers. This article utilizes a survey experiment to understand how Trump’s tweets influence subjects’ revealed racial attitudes. Subjects are exposed to one of three tweets made by Trump: a control tweet about the economy, a tweet with an implicitly racist message, or a tweet with an explicitly racist message. Analyses indicate that while exposure to racist messages does not influence respondents’ issue prioritization, both implicitly and explicitly racist messages interact with racial resentment to increase the propensity to describe African-Americans in starkly stereotypical and negative language. These findings suggest that the norm of racial equality, long thought to dampen support for elites who invoke explicitly racist rhetoric, has weakened in the Trump era.

HOW RACIAL ATTITUDES AND IDEOLOGY AFFECT POLITICAL RIGHTS FOR FELONS

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Wilson ◽  
Michael Leo Owens ◽  
Darren W. Davis
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Collateral Consequences ◽  
Felon Disenfranchisement ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
Nationally Representative

AbstractThis research examines the extent to which negative attitudes toward African Americans influence public reactions to restoring political rights to felons. We argue that race-neutral policies, such as felon disenfranchisement laws, are non-separable from racial considerations, as images of criminals and felons are typically associated with Blacks. Such attitudes produce collateral consequences for felons, hampering the restoration of their full political rights and, ultimately, their citizenship. Predispositions, such as racial attitudes and political ideology, provide both racial and nonracial justifications for supporting these laws, yet, there are no empirical accounts of their relational effects on opinion toward felons’ rights. Using nationally representative survey data, we find that racialized resentment and ideology exert the most influence on the reactions to policies seeking political rights for felons as well as beliefs about the value of doing so. Consistent with much of the literature on attitudes toward ameliorative racial policies, higher levels of racial resentment strongly predict lower support for felons’ political rights among both conservatives and liberals, yet, racial resentment is most influential among liberals. Conservatives exhibit the highest levels of racial resentment, but its impact is depressed more by agreement on both racial attitudes and opposition to political rights of felons.

Racial Sentiment and Public Support for Arming Teachers with Guns in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 215336872110389
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Baranauskas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Racial Issue ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Negative Feelings

In the effort to prevent school shootings in the United States, policies that aim to arm teachers with guns have received considerable attention. Recent research on public support for these policies finds that African Americans are substantially less likely to support them, indicating that support for arming teachers is a racial issue. Given the racialized nature of support for punitive crime policies in the United States, it is possible that racial sentiment shapes support for arming teachers as well. This study aims to determine the association between two types of racial sentiment—explicit negative feelings toward racial/ethnic minority groups and racial resentment—and support for arming teachers using a nationally representative data set. While explicit negative feelings toward African Americans and Hispanics are not associated with support for arming teachers, those with racial resentments are significantly more likely to support arming teachers. Racial resentment also weakens the effect of other variables found to be associated with support for arming teachers, including conservative ideology and economic pessimism. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

Fury in the “Promised Land”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terrence T. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Black Aesthetic ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
Popular Narrative ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Willingness To Use

This chapter examines the development of comic rage after the civil rights movement. These works push back against the popular narrative of America’s colorblindness and that the 1980s initiated a period in which racism had ceased to exist. As part of a new artistic wave known as the New Black Aesthetic, these younger writers used their perspectives as the first post-integration generation to chronicle the new challenges facing African Americans. The unprecedented willingness to use humor as a central element in their work created a perfect site for comic rage to flourish and expand. The works that emerge focus on how cultural mulattoes—as many refer to the post-integration generation—attempt to achieve equality in a country attempting to assimilate them and erase the distinctiveness of their cultural traditions and identities.

The Compound Effects of Candidate Race and Racial Resentment in US House Elections

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-325
Author(s):  
Isaac Hale
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Congressional Elections ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
White Voters ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
Theoretical Predictions ◽  
To Receive

AbstractDespite the longstanding underrepresentation of blacks in Congress, political science research has not settled on the cause. While there is increasing evidence that racial attitudes affect vote choice in today's congressional elections, how this effect interacts with the race of the candidates is unknown. This study addresses this debate by analyzing novel survey, census, and candidate data from the Obama era of congressional elections (2010–2016) to test whether racially prejudiced attitudes held by whites decrease their likelihood of supporting black Democratic candidates and Democratic candidates as a whole. In line with theoretical predictions, this paper finds that Democratic House candidates are less likely to receive votes among white voters with strong racial resentment toward blacks, and black Democratic candidates fare even worse. These findings help to explain the persistence of black legislative underrepresentation and contribute to theories of partisan racial realignment.

Rebuttals as deracializing strategies for African American and white candidates

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Matthew Tokeshi
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
Central Line ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Campaign Strategy ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Campaign Messages ◽  
Racial Cues

Abstract The study of American racial politics has long focused on the conditions that activate racial animosity. A central line of research demonstrates that campaign messages that highlight negative stereotypes of African Americans can activate whites' racial attitudes. However, little is known about whether this activation can be overcome. I develop a theory of racial deactivation and test its predictions with two survey experiments. I find that explicitly criticizing the racial nature of an attack restores support for white candidates, but not African American candidates. However, African American and white candidates fare equally well using two rebuttal styles: a credible, non-racial justification of the attacked action or an explicit racial critique combined with the justification. The results have implications for how race affects campaigns, the susceptibility of the American public to racial cues, and campaign strategy.

The Rise of Trump, The Fall of Prejudice? Tracking White Americans’ Racial Attitudes Via A Panel Survey, 2008–2018

2020 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J Hopkins ◽  
Samantha Washington
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
Presidential Rhetoric ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Lead White ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Rule Out

Abstract In his campaign and first few years in office, Donald Trump consistently defied contemporary norms by using explicit, negative rhetoric targeting ethnic/racial minorities. Did this rhetoric lead White Americans to express more or less prejudiced views of African Americans or Hispanics, whether through changing norms around racial prejudice or other mechanisms? We assess that question using a thirteen-wave panel conducted with a population-based sample of Americans between 2008 and 2018. We find that via most measures, White Americans’ expressed anti-Black and anti-Hispanic prejudice declined after Trump’s political emergence, and we can rule out even small increases in the expression of prejudice. These results suggest the limits of racially charged rhetoric’s capacity to heighten prejudice among White Americans overall. They also indicate that rather than being a fixed predisposition, prejudice can shift by reacting against changing presidential rhetoric.

Dancing with Jim Crow: The Chattanooga Embarrassment of the Methodist Episcopal Church

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-173
Author(s):  
Paul W. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Methodist Episcopal ◽  
The South ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
Episcopal Church ◽  
Methodist Episcopal Church ◽  
Heated Debate

AbstractAfter the Civil War, northern Methodists undertook a successful mission to recruit a biracial membership in the South. Their Freedmen's Aid Society played a key role in outreach to African Americans, but when the denomination decided to use Society funds in aid of schools for Southern whites, a national controversy erupted over the refusal of Chattanooga University to admit African Americans. Caught between a principled commitment to racial brotherhood and the pressures of expediency to accommodate a growing white supremacist commitment to segregation, Methodists engaged in an agonized and heated debate over whether schools intended for whites should be allowed to exclude blacks. Divisions within the leadership of the Methodist Episcopal Church caught the attention of the national press and revealed the limits of even the most well-intentioned efforts to advance racial equality in the years after Reconstruction.

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