Whites resist redistributive racial policies to protect their privileged status.

Evidence

One of the most prominent scholars to investigate this issue is Lawrence Bobo of Harvard University. In a (1988) chapter that we have reprinted, Bobo uses a variation of realistic conflict theory to argue that—in addition to racial prejudice and other “irrational hostilities” that whites might harbor against blacks—much of whites’ resistance to redistributive racial policies (such as affirmative action) stems from their desire to maintain a privileged position at the top of American society. Thus, collective action and political mobilization on the part of African Americans and on their behalf is (qulte “rationally”) perceived as a threat to European Americans. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2627

Categorization

• XREF: Rational self-interest driving policy opposition connects to the reader’s economic/anthropology material on how groups defend positions when stakes are material. — connects to: Poorer whites resisted desegregation out of fear of losing elite-guaranteed status. — Derrick A. Bell, Jr., Brown v. Board of Education and the…, 70