Racialized Tactics: The Use of Threat in the Fight Against Affirmative Action

• In Event: 261 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 11. Race and Racialized Politics

Abstract

While racial prejudice research often focuses on individual attitudes, we assess how broader factors contribute to persistent negative racial attitudes. We focus on how elite actors and groups with interest frame an argument against affirmative action in formal public documents. Do they rely on one dominant frame or do they combine multiple frames strategically to define affirmative action. Concomitantly, in framing the issue of affirmative action, if and how do they make use of threat in their argument? Herbert Blumer posed that threat to valued resources plays a strong role in the genesis of negative racial attitudes and this threat is often generated by elite entities. Data for this project comes from 18 amicus briefs in support of the petitioner in the Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin Supreme Court case. Echoing findings of Gamson and Modigliani, findings demonstrated that “reverse discrimination” continues to be the most dominant. Findings also show that the authors appear to strategically use multiple frames together that we argue revolve around the notion of threat. Particularly, we find that the authors express threat at three levels: 1) threat to the majority; 2) the threat to society; and 3) threat to minorities. Given the consistent use of three distinct arguments to produce one anti-affirmative action narrative, these findings suggest that elite communicators use complicated racialized tactics to stoke feelings of threat and prejudice.

Authors

• J. Scott Carter, University of Central Florida

• Andrew Frederick Baird, University of West Georgia

• Shannon K. Carter, University of Central Florida