Sniderman and Tetlock—Symbolic Racism: Problems of Motive Attribution in Political Analysis

Sniderman and Tetlock
"Symbolic Racism: Problems of Motive Attribution in Political Analysis"
(1986)

[144] Only a minority of Americans favor strict racial segregation, but they exaggerate how many other Americans favor it, often by a factor of two or more. ...

The point is not merely that many white Americans misperceive the racial attitudes of their fellow whites. It is rather that their misperceptions are asymmetrical, in two respects. First, they overestimate the number who are racially intolerant while underestimating the number who are racially tolerant... Second, the kind of mistake people make—whether they over- or underestimate how many people agree with them—hinges on their own racial attitudes. Thus, the racially intolerant overestimate—while the racially tolerant underestimate—how many people agree with them.

The asymmetry in preference estimation—pluralistic ignorance, as it is commonly called—suggests how the American dilemma is enduring. Not only does racial intolerance resist change, but even when it does diminish, the change often goes unnoticed, especially by the racially intolerant, with the result that they continue to believe they are in the majority while the tolerant continue to labor under the belief that they are in the minority.

Research on pluralistic ignorance undercuts the presupposition of symbolic racism researchers that social pressure against overt expression of anti-black affect is now widely effective in American society. Many bigots are not ashamed of their bigotry. It is not, from their point of view, bigotry at all; it merely a [sic] factual description of the world, and of certain kinds of people as they really are—indeed, as any open-minded person would acknowledge they are. Of course, some will feel inhibited from open expression of racial hostility. But many will not. If racists were as quick to dive for cover as symbolic racism theory suggests, racism would be a less serious problem than it is in fact.

Symbolic racism researchers also may have been too optimistic in their analysis of values. Race is the American dilemma, as it seems to us, in part because resistance to assuring equality for blacks (in addition to being rooted in racism) may still more fundamentally be grounded in the American ethos itself.

Symbolic racism researchers have pointed to the importance of such traditional values as self-reliance and the work ethic. But these values come into importance, on a symbolic racism analysis, only insofar as they are allied or conjoined with racial prejudice. But there is another, more sobering possibility: values such as individualism may undercut support for efforts to achieve racial equality, even when these values have nothing whatever to do with racism. For
[145]
example, suppose a woman opposes government assistance for blacks. Then she confronts a request for assistance for women similar to that requested for blacks. If she opposes assistance for women, just as she opposes it for blacks, should she be described as a racist?

There are many Americans like the hypothetical woman. They oppose government assistance for blacks, not out of aversion to blacks, but rather out of a set of normative beliefs defining the propriety both of asking for, and providing, public assistance. And these normative beliefs, a growing body of research suggests, tap values central in the American ethos, especially individualism.

Just how does this analysis suggest that a symbolic racism analysis may be overoptimistic? Quite simply, even supposing prejudice were to disappear completely, there would in all probability remain substantial popular opposition to government efforts to achieve racial equality. From this perspective, the American dilemma may involve a deep paradox: resistance to efforts to achieve racial equality may be rooted precisely in a commitment to a distinctively American conception of equality.

[emailed to self, 26 April 2021]