White objections to racial change defend group privilege rather than prejudice

Evidence

Drawing on in-depth interviews with several prototypical respondents from a survey of San Francisco Bay area residents, Wellman (1977) found that whites frequently objected to large-scale racial change. These objections, he concluded, were not grounded in a form of prejudice but appeared to serve as a defense of group privilege. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3362

Categorization

• XREF: Challenges the conventional prejudice framework for explaining racial attitudes; parallels class-interests explanations of opposition to integration. — connects to: White racial ideology supports formal equality while opposing burdensome change — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 3436; White guilt mediates privilege’s effect on affirmative action attitudes but not discrimination beliefs’ effect. — Janet K. Swim and Deborah L. Miller, White Guilt: Its Antecedents and…, 102; Judge-imposed racial desegregation can take root where most whites accept it — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 106
• SEED: Essay angle: reframing everyday objections to demographic change as rational defense of privilege rather than irrational bigotry, and the political implications of that reframing.