Aversive racism arises from conflict between disavowed anti-Black feelings and egalitarian beliefs

Evidence

This line of reasoning has conceptual parallels in Gaertner and Dovidio’s (1986) analysis of aversive racism, which proposes that many White Americans simultaneously hold anti-Black feelings and a sincere belief that people should be treated equally (see also Dovidio & Gaertner, 2004). Although these negative feelings are largely disavowed and consequently unacknowledged by many White people, they are nevertheless activated during interactions with Black people. This juxtaposition of prejudice and egalitarianism leads to aversive racism, such that the conflict between simultaneously-activated prejudiced and egalitarian views causes aversive feelings, such as discomfort, unease, and sometimes fear. Aversive feelings can motivate people to avoid future interactions with Black people in order to avoid evoking negative emotions. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2093

Categorization

• XREF: Aversive racism as conflict between simultaneous internal states echoes the repression-then-leak dynamics in the Freudian frameworks also discussed elsewhere in Allport scholarship. — connects to: Aversive racism pits sincere egalitarian values against unacknowledged anti-Black feelings. — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 198; Modern antiblack bias stems from perceived value violations, not biological inferiority claims — Blake M. Riek, Eric W. Mania, and Samuel L. Gaertner, Intergroup Threat and Outgroup…, 32; Latinx communities’ anti-Blackness makes AfroLatinx members feel inferior and unwanted. — Tatiana I. Zamora and Amado M. Padilla, Making sense of conflicting messages of…, 110
• SHARE: Would send to a social psychologist colleague working on implicit bias measurement who collects origin stories of aversive racism theory.