The Persistence of Racial Cues and Appeals in American Elections

This article reviews the literature on the persistence of racial cues and appeals in American elections. I focus on three central themes: racial priming, the influence of the Obama presidential campaigns on racial cues, and racial appeals in the context of a diversifying United States. I identify linkages across these domains while also suggesting avenues for future research. I argue that in the context of a diversifying United States, scholars should develop more measures that capture attitudes that are specific to groups other than African Americans. The nation's growing racial and ethnic diversity is also an opportunity to develop and test more theories that explain the political behavior of racial and ethnic minorities beyond the traditional black–white divide. Finally, since much of the research on racial cues focuses on whites’ racial animus, I suggest that scholars spend more time exploring how racial cues influence the behavior of whites with positive racial attitudes. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 24 is May 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Rebuttals as deracializing strategies for African American and white candidates

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.

Supporters and opponents of Donald Trump respond differently to racial cues: An experimental analysis

A number of recent studies suggest that individuals who exhibit high levels of racial animosity strongly support Donald Trump, while racial liberals strongly oppose him. This paper provides a new experimental analysis of the extent to which supporters and opponents of Trump respond differently to race-related stimuli. Specifically, we examine whether attitudes toward Trump moderate the political impact of racial cues in the environment. We find that white Trump supporters randomly exposed to a black (versus a white) man in the context of soliciting their support for a housing-assistance policy were more opposed to the policy, angrier about the policy, and more likely to blame beneficiaries for their situation. The opposite pattern prevailed among whites with unfavorable opinions of Trump. Our results help provide new insight into how Trump supporters and opponents differ in their responses to the salience of race in American politics.

Whitened Résumés: Race and Self-Presentation in the Labor Market

Using interviews, a laboratory experiment, and a résumé audit study, we examine racial minorities’ attempts to avoid anticipated discrimination in labor markets by concealing or downplaying racial cues in job applications, a practice known as “résumé whitening.” Interviews with racial minority university students reveal that while some minority job seekers reject this practice, others view it as essential and use a variety of whitening techniques. Building on the qualitative findings, we conduct a lab study to examine how racial minority job seekers change their résumés in response to different job postings. Results show that when targeting an employer that presents itself as valuing diversity, minority job applicants engage in relatively little résumé whitening and thus submit more racially transparent résumés. Yet our audit study of how employers respond to whitened and unwhitened résumés shows that organizational diversity statements are not actually associated with reduced discrimination against unwhitened résumés. Taken together, these findings suggest a paradox: minorities may be particularly likely to experience disadvantage when they apply to ostensibly pro-diversity employers. These findings illuminate the role of racial concealment and transparency in modern labor markets and point to an important interplay between the self-presentation of employers and the self-presentation of job seekers in shaping economic inequality.

Racial Cues and Racial Identity

Previous research suggests racial identity and racial cues, such as the extent to which an event is blatantly or ambiguously race-related, individually shape African American (AA) individuals’ experiences with racial discrimination (RD). However, scant attention has been paid to the interactive or transactional influences of these factors. The present study examined the direct effects of racial cues and the interactive effects of racial cues and racial identity—specifically, the extent to which AAs believe others view AAs negatively—on 78 AAs’ interpretations of and affective responses to lab-based RD. Findings revealed a direct effect of racial cues on participants’ perceptions of the event as being race-relevant and on participants’ affect. Moreover, racial identity moderated the associations between racial cues and participants’ perceptions and affective responses. These findings suggest that AAs’ experiences with RD are not homogeneous and that the interplay or transaction between racial cues and racial identity is vital in such experiences.

Conditioned by Race: How Race and Religion Intersect to Affect Candidate Evaluations

While it is becoming increasingly clear that religious cues influence voter evaluations in the United States, work examining religious cues has largely overlooked the conditioning role of race. We employed a 2 × 2 (White candidate vs. Black candidate) × (racial cues vs. no racial cues) online experiment with a national sample (N= 397; 56% white, 46% black) where participants were exposed to a fictitious congressional candidate's webpage. Results show that White participants expected the religious candidate to be more conservative, regardless of race, while Black participants did not perceive a difference in ideology between the religious and non-religious Black candidates. Additionally, when it comes to candidate favorability, religious cues matter more to White participants, while racial cues are most important to Black participants. These findings provide evidence that religious and racial cues activate different assumptions among White and Black citizens.