Racial innocence ideology let white suburbanites fail to consider government culpability

Evidence

This suburban ideology of racial innocence underlay a predisposition to reject—or more often to fail even to consider—the abstract proposition that the government’s culpability in concentrating black residents in a certain part of the city should have any personal impact on middle-class lifestyles. — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 42

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘fail even to consider’ mechanism — suppression by non-consideration rather than overt hostility — matches the rebranding trajectory in the reading purpose. — connects to: De facto segregation was often de jure in effect, hidden by self-deception; White middle-class parents framed suburban privilege as earned individual reward, erasing government-sponsored segregation — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 42; An ideology is racialized by its impact even when it lacks racial references (+3 more)

Related

• Suburban racial innocence made government housing segregation almost unthinkable as a personal concern (similarity 0.89)
• White suburban parents reframed segregated schooling as earned rewards of individual merit (similarity 0.83)
• De facto segregation was often de jure in effect, hidden by self-deception (similarity 0.83)
• White middle-class parents framed suburban privilege as earned individual reward, erasing government-sponsored segregation (similarity 0.83)
• Color-blind ideology enshrined suburban autonomy and white racial innocence as national doctrine. (similarity 0.81)
• Suburban conservatism paired rhetorical support for integration with opposition to its means. (similarity 0.79)
• A losing busing fight still reshaped national politics toward color-blindness. (similarity 0.79)
• Color-blind respectability politics marginalized open segregationists (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Race lets citizens deny both state violence and their own implication in it #complicates (0.80)
• An ideology is racialized by its impact even when it lacks racial references #expands (0.75)
• White observers hold innocence as the default for Whites and criminality for Blacks #responds-to (0.72)