TRENDS: Racial Resentment and Public Opinion across the Racial Divide

Research on racial resentment has been meticulously developed, tested, and analyzed with white Americans in mind—yet black Americans have also responded to this battery for the past three decades. To date, little to nothing is known about the implications of responses to the racial resentment battery among black Americans. A burgeoning literature on blacks’ intragroup attitudes suggests that over time, black Americans have increasingly attributed racial inequality to individual failings as opposed to structural forces. As such, unpacking blacks’ responses to the canonical racial resentment battery may provide further insight into the micro-foundations of black public opinion. Using survey data from 1986 to 2016, we engage in a systematic quantitative examination of the role of racial resentment in predicting black and white Americans’ opinions on racial policies, “race-coded” policies, and nonracialized policies. Along the way, we highlight the existence of wide heterogeneity among black respondents and call for further investigation that identifies similarities and differences in the foundations of white and black public opinion.

American While Black

While the Civil Rights Movement brought increasing opportunities for blacks, this period also saw the liberalization of American immigration policy. The same agitation that allowed blacks to vote also made it possible for increasing numbers of non-European immigrants to enter America for the first time. What has an expanded immigration regime meant for how blacks express national attachment? Using quantitative and qualitative data, this book helps us understand the context and constraint of white supremacy on the formation of black public opinion and national attachment. Recent waves of immigration have presented a dilemma for blacks, causing them to reflect yet again on the meaning and depth of their own citizenship, national identity, and sense of belonging in the United States. It is the author’s contention that immigration, both historically and in the contemporary moment, has served as a reminder of the limited inclusion of African Americans in the body politic.

Beyond Immigration

As the concluding chapter of the work, this chapter revisits the central thesis of the book, which is the import of the context and constraints of white supremacy on black public opinion formation. Using immigration as a lens to better understand black opinion, the book argues that white supremacy is at the core of black public opinion formation; in this way, it is not an individual story about immigrants or immigration policy. My theory of conflicted nativism helps the reader to understand how and why blacks hold seemingly divergent opinions on the issue of immigration. I am able to show, however, that these opinions are not in conflict. Rather, blacks have distinct considerations as Americans that come from their unique position in the American racial hierarchy and the ways in which white supremacy structures how they navigate an array of political issues. The chapter concludes with a brief examination of border separations, which has animated much of the recent conversation in this policy arena.

Lies, Fairytales, and Fallacies

This chapter introduces the key ideas animating the text. The twin issues of race and nationhood remain a significant part of the conversation regarding black political incorporation and are rendered most visible in the domain of immigration. Blacks have a different perspective of America that is grounded in their peculiar history and experiences with the country and its institutions. The chapter begins by putting forward the major theoretical underpinnings of existing works in black public opinion. In particular, it focuses on the work on interminority relations and lays out the critical interventions of this text. Chapter outlines and a roadmap to the rest of the text are provided.

Descriptive Representation and Black Public Opinion Toward Electoral Reforms

Given the difficulties blacks experience exercising their right to vote, it seems that African Americans would uniformly support laws that make it easier for people to vote (progressive electoral reforms), while uniformly opposing laws that make it more difficult for people to vote (prohibitive electoral reforms). Arguing against this logic and building on studies of winning and losing in politics, the chapter posits that descriptive representation in the state legislature should liberalize black public opinion toward electoral reforms governing access to the franchise, using 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study data to find partial support. An increased black seat share in the legislature is associated with blacks being less supportive of requiring that voters read from the US Constitution and requiring voters to show photo ID. Further, an increased black seat share is related to blacks being more supportive of automatic voter registration and election-day registration. The black representation ratio was unimportant for understanding whether blacks supported electoral reforms.

Gaining Voice

This book adopts a multifaceted approach to study of black state legislators across the country. Using the descriptive representation framework, multiple facets of black representation are studied. Black seat share is the primary facet considered, and it is measured as the proportion of seats held by blacks in the state legislature. The black representation ratio measures the black seat share relative to the black population share. Parity exists when blacks are represented in the state legislature at a rate that matches their population share. Legislative black caucuses are also studied in this work, representing the institutionalization of the black presence in state legislatures. The first half of the book shows that while black people are critical for explaining black representation in state legislatures, that institutional and non-racial demographic factors also account for the black seat share, black representation ratio, and emergence of state legislative black caucuses. A “demographics is destiny” explanation insufficiently accounts for blacks gaining voice in state legislatures. The second half the book considers the consequences of black representation in state government. On the one hand, a greater black presence increases education spending, black political involvement, and liberalizes black public opinion. On the other hand, an increased black presence is linked with less liberal welfare policy, in particular in places where Democrats hold the majority of state legislative seats. Thus, an increased black presence in the legislature can be seen as a double-edged sword.

Do All Black Lives Matter Equally to Black People? Respectability Politics and the Limitations of Linked Fate

Cathy Cohen’s (1999) theory of secondary marginalization helps to explain why the needs of some members of Black communities are not prioritized on “the” Black political agenda; indeed, some groups are ignored altogether as mainstream Black public opinion shifts to the right (Tate 2010). However, the contemporary movement for Black Lives calls for an intersectional approach to Black politics. Its platform requires participants to take seriously the notion that since Black communities are diverse, so are the needs of its members. To what extent are Blacks likely to believe that those who face secondary marginalization should be prioritized on the Black political agenda? What is the role of linked fate in galvanizing support around these marginalized Blacks? To what extent does respectability politics serve to hinder a broader embrace of Blacks who face different sets of interlocking systems of oppression, such as Black women, formerly incarcerated Blacks, undocumented Black people, and Black members of LBGTQ communities in an era marked by Black social movements? We analyze data from the 2016 Collaborative Multi-Racial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) to assess whether all Black lives matter to Black Americans.

The Legal System and Its African American Constituents

Despite popular reports that the legal system is in a state of crisis with respect to its African American constituents, research on black public opinion in general is limited owing to the difficulty and expense of assembling representative samples of minorities. We suspect that the story of lagging legal legitimacy among African Americans is in fact quite a bit more nuanced than is often portrayed. In particular, black public opinion is unlikely to be uniform and homogeneous; black people most likely vary in their attitudes toward law and legal institutions. Especially significant is variability in the experiences—personal and vicarious—black people have had with legal authorities (e.g., “stop-and-frisk”), and the nature of individuals’ attachment to blacks as a group (e.g., “linked fate”). We posit that both experiences and in-group identities are commanding because they influence the ways in which black people process information, and in particular, the ways in which blacks react to the symbols of legal authority (e.g., judges’ robes).

The Seeds of a Black Movement?

The last chapter of the book, chapter 9, takes a look at formal or above-ground expressions of racial consciousness in Cuba and the development of a space, albeit a small one, for racial dialogue on the island. The chapter looks at organizations that were created after the political opening in the 1990s to address issues of discrimination, and how their focus and influence affect the debate that is beginning to circulate around race. It also highlights how the hip-hop movement, one of the most important and far-reaching messengers of black consciousness in Cuba, uses music to insert a new racial rhetoric into the public sphere that has not been heard prior to this period. Finally, the chapter joins the under- and above-ground components of black consciousness to show that black public opinion regarding organization and activism often aligns with what elites and writing about in the public sphere.