Explanations for racial disadvantage and racial advantage: beliefs about both sides of inequality in America

Abstract

Attitudes about racial inequality in the United States are often viewed through the lenses of discrimination and disadvantage. However, as whiteness studies suggest, systems of racial inequality produce both disadvantage and advantage. National surveys have documented explanations for African American disadvantage but have not collected data on explanations for white advantage. African American disadvantage and white advantage are two sides of the same coin – racial inequality. To understand attitudes about racial inequality, we need to know Americans' beliefs about both sides of the racialized system. This research uses national survey data to examine explanations for both sides of racial inequality and identifies which factors are believed to be most important in explaining white advantage, finding that racial attitudes are complex and are dependent upon the specific situation and context. This research will provide a valuable contribution to both whiteness studies and race relations research.

Keywords:

• Race
• race attitudes
• racial inequality
• whiteness
• race relations
• United States

Notes

1. This research was supported by a grant from the Edelstein Family Foundation, and by Augustana College. An earlier version was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco, CA (August 2009). I would like to thank Doug Hartmann, Joe Gerteis, Penny Edgell, Woody Doane, Peter Kivisto, and reviewers from Ethnic and Racial Studies for their comments and feedback.

2. In addition to the American Mosaic Project, another study that has also expanded research on racial attitudes is the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (see O'Connor, Tilly and Bobo 2001).

3. A full discussion of previous research on beliefs about racial inequality is beyond the scope of this article. Hunt (2007) provides an excellent summary of this research. For a broader discussion of the racial attitudes literature, see Schuman et al. 1997; Krysan 2000; and Sears, Sidanius and Bobo 2000.

4. This research examines Americans’ explanations for racial inequality. Racial inequality is defined here as inequality between African Americans and whites. While the analyses presented include attitudes of other racial groups about black-white inequality, the survey questions themselves do only ask about explanations for inequality for African Americans and whites. I acknowledge that this does, in part, reify the black-white paradigm that has been prevalent in much of the racial attitudes research. However, the inclusion of survey data about white advantage expands on previous research by making white the subject of inquiry, not simply one of the groups solicited for attitudes. My hope is that future research will build on this work and collect data on explanations for racial inequality for additional racial groups beyond black and white which could further enrich our understanding of the complexities of the racialized system.

5. Note also that the 'parallel‘ questions on white advantage and African American disadvantage are not strictly logical complements. The traditional questions on African Americans posit that African Americans are worse off than whites. A pure parallel to this would be to posit that whites are better off than African Americans. However, when developing the survey questions, it became clear that this comparison was incomplete. Many people asked about Hispanics, Asians, and other racial groups and wondered why they were excluded in the questions about white advantage. This led to the wording, 'whites better off than others’.