Whites' Beliefs about Racial Inequality and White Engagement in Race-Specific Political Activity

• In Event: 2346 - Racism and Anti-Racism I

Abstract

Past research on anti-racist whites and their path to an anti-racist praxis shows that knowledge and awareness of systemic causes of racial inequality is necessary for whites to develop a sustained commitment to racial justice. Awareness of unfair racial inequality, alone, however, does not likely mobilize whites to act against racial injustice. Scholars have demonstrated several different ways that whites know about unfair racial social systems but do not act on this knowledge (Bartky, 2006; Forman and Lewis 2006; Jung 2017; Mills, 2007; Mueller, 2017). Using a typology adapted from previous studies on modes of explaining racial inequality (Hunt 2014; Kluegel 1990; Kluegel and Bobo 1997), this paper tests whether or not whites’ structuralist (versus individualist) attributions of racial inequality positively relate to white engagement in race-specific political activities. It then asks whether or not specific values (egalitarian values, social responsibility, racial apathy, race-specific social responsibility, and cross-racial linked fate) moderate the relationship between structural attributions of racial inequality and engagement in political activities aimed at improving the lives of racial minorities. Based on data collected through the 2018 Chicago Area Study, a non-random, cross-sectional survey of residents of Chicago and the Chicago Metropolitan area (N=928), this study found that white actors who attribute racial inequality, even partially, to discrimination (structural attributions) are more likely to participate in race-specific political action. Some values do moderate this relationship (race-specific values seem to do so more than non-race-specific values), but understanding the pattern of moderation requires further (in-progress) analysis. The findings suggest that identifying structural causes of racial inequality makes white more likely to engage in some forms of political anti-racism, consistent with the literature on white anti-racism, but that whites with certain race-specific social values and structural beliefs may be more likely to participate in anti-racist action.

Author

• Luna White, Northwestern University