‘Whitelash?’ status threat, anger, and white America: a general strain theory approach

ABSTRACT

Progress towards racial equality has left many Whites, particularly men, feeling that Whites have replaced Blacks as the principal victims of discrimination. Thus, although Whites’ privileged position in American society disallows their true oppression, many still feel discriminated against. Following a general strain theory framework, this study examines the associations between perceived anti-white bias, anger, and offending for White youth. Furthermore, we investigate if the revealed associations vary by gender. Results suggest that Whites who perceive experiencing high levels of anti-white bias have high levels of offending behaviors. Moreover, these associations are amplified by anger and felt the strongest by young men. These findings underscore the importance of incorporating critical perspectives on whiteness into the study of crime.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• anti-white bias
• status threat

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See Earls et al. (2005, 2007) for a detailed description of the original study design and sampling frame.

2. Respondents could provide multiple responses for their racial and ethnic identity. If the categorical and open-ended responses did not match, the respondent was classified by their open-ended response. This racial self-classification was part of the personal identity file, which served as the base file for the present study and was only administered during the third wave of data collection.

3. In the past 12 months, have you … (0/1) carried a hidden weapon; purposely damaged or destroyed property that did not belong to you? Like breaking, cutting, or marking up something; purposely set fire to a house, building, car, or vacant lot; entered or broken into a building to steal something; stolen something from a store; snatched someone’s purse or wallet or picked someone’s pocket; stolen something from a car; knowingly bought or sold stolen goods; stolen a car or motorcycle to keep or sell; sold marijuana or pot; sold cocaine or crack; sold heroin; hit someone you live with, with the idea of hurting them; hit someone you DID NOT live with, with the idea of hurting them; attacked someone with a weapon; used a weapon or force to get money or things from people; thrown objects like rocks or bottles at people – other than what you have already told me about; chased someone to scare or hurt them; shot someone; shot AT someone; been in a gang fight in which someone was hurt or threatened with harm; threatened to physically hurt someone – other than what you have already told me about; had or TRIED to have sexual relations with someone against their will.

4. Principal components analysis was used in preliminary analyses to determine which combination of items provided the best measures for the needed constructs. Indicators of anti-white bias and police injustices loaded on separate components and were therefore treated as independent constructs in the present analyses (results available upon request).

5. The present outcome variable contains a high number of zeroes, and the variance (s² = 1.157) greatly exceeds the mean ( =  0.4658) violating the assumptions of a Poisson distribution. The Stata command ‘countfit’ was used to compare the model residuals between negative binomial regression and zero-inflated negative binomial regression to determine which distribution best fits the present sample. While the predicted outcomes are similar, comparisons of model fit statistics suggest negative binomial distribution significantly fits the present data best. Countfit outcomes available upon request.

6. Two variables, employment status and school status, had VIFs above 4 (5 and 7, respectively), thus warranting further investigation. Employment status and school status are strongly, negatively correlated (r = −.882). To investigate the impacts of this collinearity, the negative binomial regression of the controls on serious and violent offending were analyzed with each variable independently and together. Effect sizes and significance levels for all variables did not significantly vary between models. Therefore, given the decision to exclude non-significant controls in later models (Hosmer and Lemeshow 2000), both variables are presented in the final Table A2 for theoretical consistency. All other factors had VIFs below 4, thus in the satisfactory range. The additional regression models and VIFs are available upon request.

7. Table A2 presents the results of the negative binomial regression of serious and violent offending on the collection of control variables. Being female, having strong family attachments, and living in a stable environment significantly decreased the expected value of serious and violent offending, and having delinquent peers significantly increased the expected value of serious and violent offending for White youth. The other controls were not statistically significant, but in the theoretically expected directions for a White sample. While not significant, Table A2 reveals being employed, living at home, and residing in a more ethnically heterogeneous neighborhood are positively associated with serious and violent offending. These associations align with social dominance (Sidanius and Pratto 1999) and racial threat (e.g., Bobo and Hutchings 1996; also see Bonilla-Silva 2018) theories. For instance, a young White man may feel he should not have to live with relatives, and while he is employed, it may be at a job he believes is beneath him. And, if he sees people of Color around him that are better off than he is, it is likely to make him angry if he holds beliefs that he deserves better because he is a White man. Parsing out these effects are beyond the scope and power of the present study, but worthy of investigation in the future.

Given the small sample size, non-significant controls were excluded from the remaining analyses to maintain statistical power (Hosmer and Lemeshow 2000).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Deena A. Isom Scott

Deena A. Isom Scott is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the AfricanAmerican Studies Program at the University of South Carolina. She received her PhD from Emory University in 2015.Her research aims to understand the causes and consequences of disparities in criminal behaviors and contact with thejustice system.

Tia Stevens Andersen

Tia Stevens Andersen is an associate professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at theUniversity of South Carolina. She received her PhD from Michigan State University in 2013. Her major researchinterests include mentoring, juvenile delinquency, and juvenile justice system processing.