Racial inequality persists in new symbolic forms that defend privileged group positions

Evidence

Insofar as important inequalities remain, it should be expected that new attitudes and beliefs, amenable to the current context, will begin to arise to explain and defend those inequalities. These new attitudes and beliefs emerge naturally from one group’s “side” of social experience as they attempt to provide meaning and order in their lives. The bent of these emerging views will be such as to support a privileged group’s hegemonic position. A key psychological basis for this tendency is the sense of group position. It has been suggested that the most persuasive argument for resistance to large-scale racial change in the present social context is an appeal to the value of individualism (Jackman & Muha, 1984). Policies that are premised on the recognition of group characteristics are resisted, ostensibly, because they violate the ideal of individualism. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3421

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the ‘sense of group position’ as the psychological mechanism behind new inequality-justifying attitudes.
• XREF: Connects to the book’s own symbolic racism framework and to Milgram’s earlier chapters on how institutions and reputational mechanisms sustain group order. — connects to: Workplace claims-making power is shaped by race and gender status. — Ken-Hou Lin & Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Financialization and U.S. Income…, 106; Racial ordering persists by relocating from public law to private spheres — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1845; Privileged groups preserve power by shifting from inherent-inferiority to cultural-deficit rationales after formal equality. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 113