Prejudice-based accounts cannot explain why racial attitudes changed form

Evidence

No sustained analysis of why this shift in attitudes has occurred is provided. If the root of the problem is a form of prejudice, then it is difficult to understand why there would be any pressure to change from segregationist attitudes to some newer, more relevant form of voicing an irrational hostility toward blacks. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3423

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: This is a genuinely sharp theoretical point: if racial antipathy were a fixed irrational kernel, what mechanism would drive it to adopt new verbal packaging? The implied answer—that group interests, not animus, explain attitudinal updating—is a paradigm-shifting critique that resists quick summary.
• XREF: connects to: Southern and non-Southern whites changed racial attitudes at equal rates — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 319; Dog-whistle theory may be outdated because overt racial prejudice is now socially acceptable. — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 26