Confronting Racial Terror: Past Injustice and Contemporary Political Attitudes

• In Event: Race, Ethnicity, and American Political Development

Abstract

How does exposure to historical atrocities influence the way we think they should be
remembered and addressed in modern day? Reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States has been a topic of discussion since the reconstruction era. During the wave of protests and activism in the aftermath of the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, there were renewed discussions surrounding the idea of reparations. Nevertheless, Black Americans have yet to receive state sanctioned recognition or redress for the effects of American slavery. Political scientists have examined the multiple explanations for why white Americans do not support aid to Black people (see, e.g., Mendelberg 2001; Gilens 2014; Valentino, Hutchings, and White 2004). However, research has yet to examine the context in which people do support reparations as a policy to address past wrongdoing. We argue that educational interventions like museums and news articles alter political attitudes when it comes to reparations. To test this argument, we randomly assign survey participants to treatments recounting violent lynchings of African Americans in the Reconstruction era. Through an online experiment, we demonstrate that individuals are more likely to condemn the existence of symbols commemorating those associated with racism and white supremacy and are more likely to support establishing victim-centered reparative policies to recompense those whose families suffered. The effects are particularly strong when the information is accompanied by individual stories and audiovisual components. We consider the persistence of the results with follow-up surveys. These results speak to potential ways to decrease racial resentment and to alter political attitudes.

Authors

• Elsa Voytas, Princeton University

• Chaya Crowder, Princeton University