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The New York Times "Room for Debate" forum is currently devoted to a recent study I published with Mike Norton of Harvard Business School on how Americans think about racial bias. Here's the intro to the Times forum, titled "Is Anti-White Bias a Problem?"
A new study has found that Americans think significant progress has been made in the fight against anti-black bias. But white Americans perceived that progress as coming at their expense and that anti-white bias has become a bigger societal problem than anti-black bias.
Is this finding surprising? Do we see this view reflected in government policies or court decisions? If so, how?
The editors asked us to contribute a brief piece answering the questions they raised and setting the stage for the debate to follow. Since this issue is directly relevant to past entries of this blog (see here and here), as well as recent controversies on this website, I'm reproducing what we wrote below–be sure to check out the Times forum for the various commentaries and responses to the issue:
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Our recent research reveals that white and black Americans agree that bias against blacks was prevalent in the 1950's and 1960's. But while blacks see such racism as continuing, whites tend to see it as a problem that has been more or less "solved."
If anything, many whites now believe that it's anti-white bias that's on an upswing, to the point where it's even more prevalent than anti-black bias - a sentiment not shared by blacks. Why would the perception of anti-white bias have increased dramatically among whites, particularly in recent years?
Many Americans support the march toward full and equal rights for all through efforts to curtail discrimination: the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 1960's; efforts to secure gender equality in the 1960's and 1970's; the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; the push for gay marriage in the past decade. At the same time, though, some ask "at whose expense?"
One outcome of granting rights to traditionally marginalized groups has been to leave many whites feeling marginalized themselves. What are the consequences of this sense of marginalization?
For one, the very same developments that some would point to as evidence of progress toward equality (an African-American president, a Latina Supreme Court justice) are seen by others as further evidence of the threats aligned against them.
Consider the rhetoric associated with some members of the Tea Party, whose emphasis on the perceived values of the founding fathers implicitly centers on the notion that the founders were white heterosexual Christians. Or the oft-voiced concern that political correctness has stifled traditional American values, as with the idea of a "war on Christmas."
As a result, there's a "jockeying for stigma" among groups in America today. This competition is surprising because being marginalized often equates to being powerless, yet many whites now use their sense of marginalization as a rallying cry toward action. Already, this sentiment is affecting political discourse, as shown by the rise of the Tea Party and the growing number of lawsuits alleging "reverse racism."
In an era in which all groups, even the historically empowered majority, see themselves as disadvantaged, politicians and policymakers must accept the reality that deciding from which direction to fight the problem of discrimination is becoming an increasingly difficult task.
(photo above from NY Times/Anna Otto)
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Sam Sommers is a social psychologist at Tufts University in Medford, MA. His first book, Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World, will be published by Riverhead Books (Penguin) in December 2011. You can follow him on Facebook here and on Twitter here.
