“The Caucasian Persuasion”: The Effect of Black Political Candidates’ Skin Tone on Whites’ Attitudes

• In Event: Intragroup Dynamics and Group Boundaries

Abstract

White people have differentiated between African Americans based on skin tone dating back centuries. Still, relatively little work has incorporated skin tone variation into theorizing or studies of White racial attitudes. I develop a theoretical framework building from group position theory to understand how the skin tone of Black candidates influences Whites’ perceptions of them, arguing that skin tone should be especially potent for Whites who are very concerned about maintaining their dominant status in the racial hierarchy. Drawing from 67 original in-depth interviews with African Americans and a YouGov survey experiment with Whites, I find strong support for these theoretical expectations. On average, Black candidates with darker skin receive significantly lower evaluations from Whites voters, especially among two subgroups: strong White identifiers and White Republicans (or conservatives). This literature highlights the value that more fine-grained measures of race provide towards understanding the political contours of the American racial landscape.

Author

• Nicole Yadon, Ohio State University