Exposing subtle racism as violating egalitarian norms can trigger repudiation

Evidence

A final possible source of inner conflict is not the new racisms, but vestiges of the old racism that remain psychological hot buttons for White Americans because they conflict with the American Creed. Many Whites might accept subtle racist messages because they do not perceive them as inconsistent with the norm of racial equality. But, as Allport suggested, the best retort to bigotry may be an appeal to the Creed. If the underlying racism in subtly racist messages was revealed, they might be repudiated for violating it. The 1988 Republican presidential campaign exploited a horrific crime of sexual violence against a white woman by Willie Horton, a black convict, to attack the Democrats for being “soft on crime.” Though ostensibly a message about crime, the message had a strongly racial subtext. When Jesse Jackson pointed this out, some Whites turned against the Republican campaign (Mendelberg, 2001). Egalitarians also successfully appealed to Whites’ consensual opposition to old-fashioned racism after David Duke’s membership in the KKK was publicized during his statewide campaigns in Louisiana in the 1990s, and in 2000, after Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s public nostalgia for Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist campaign was revealed. Interestingly enough, Duke’s and Lott’s fellow Republicans seemed the most nervous, as if being associated with old-fashioned racism is the political kiss of death today. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2190

A final possible source of inner conflict is not the new racisms, but vestiges of the old racism that remain psychological hot buttons for White Americans because they conflict with the American Creed. Many Whites might accept subtle racist messages because they do not perceive them as inconsistent with the norm of racial equality. But, as Allport suggested, the best retort to bigotry may be an appeal to the Creed. If the underlying racism in subtly racist messages was revealed, they might be repudiated for violating it. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2190

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Allport’s own theory of prejudice and the American Creed concept; also echoes the ‘complaints about immodesty’ moral-panic framing of how overt signaling triggers backlash. — connects to: Racial homogenization is the necessary precondition for objectification and enmity — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 708; Dog whistles activate latent racial prejudice while evading egalitarian norms — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 5; Conservative strategists deliberately coded racial appeals to evade egalitarian norms — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 3 (+4 more)
• SEED: Article angle: the Willie Horton example as a case where revealing the racial subtext actually shifted white voters against the campaign — a rare documented failure of dog-whistle politics.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2190; , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2190