Abstract

In recent years as public opinion polls have shown a decline in racist responses, white Americans have strongly resisted school desegregation and affirmative action programs. Hence, there has been a debate over the extent to which racism has really declined. The theory of modern racism addresses these issues, distinguishing between old-fashioned racial beliefs recognized by everyone as racism and a new set of beliefs arising from the conflicts of the civil rights movement. The theory proposes that antiblack feeling remains high and has been displaced from the socially undesirable old-fashioned beliefs onto the new beliefs where the racism is not recognized. Three experiments were performed; results showed that, regardless of context, the old-fashioned items were perceived as more likely to reveal prejudice. The results are discussed in terms of their significance for opinion polling and continuing racial conflict in America.

Keywords

RacismPrejudice (legal term)DesegregationPublic opinionContext (archaeology)Psychometrics of racismFeelingWhite (mutation)Social psychologyAffirmative actionSociologyGender studiesPolitical sciencePoliticsPsychologyLawHistory

Affiliated Institutions

Related Publications

The Wretched of the Earth

Frantz Fanon

A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement, Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, ...

2018 7413 citations

Publication Info

Year
1981
Type
article
Volume
25
Issue
4
Pages
563-579
Citations
733
Access
Closed

External Links

View on DOI.org

Social Impact

Altmetric
PlumX Metrics

Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions

Citation Metrics

733
OpenAlex

Cite This

John B. McConahay, Betty B. Hardee, Valerie Batts (1981). Has Racism Declined in America?. Journal of Conflict Resolution , 25 (4) , 563-579. https://doi.org/10.1177/002200278102500401

Identifiers

DOI
10.1177/002200278102500401