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SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES I 93 Subtle Prejudice for Modern Times malice. To be opposed to affirmative action and simultaneously sympathetic to blacks is not schizophrenic: rejection of affirmative action may be rooted in con- siderations that have nothing to do with race. Whites might be convinced that affirmative action programs violate principles they care deeply about: that in- dividuals should advance or fall back entirely on the basis of their own talents and efforts, say, or that government should keep out of matters that are essen- tially private. We will take such possibilities seriously as analysts, just as many In 1936, President Roosevelt selected Marshall Shepard, a black clergyman from ,. ?Gke _A-_.-_ r;r- ly.- _-I._ E maw "~-, +alm .--.- hem -L.-I-. cpvim~dv "-__v-Y- . I ac r1)~~~~n.z lY ----I--.-. Mount Olivet Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia and a member of the At the same time, we must also consider the possibility that behind white Pennsylvania legislature, to deliver the invocation at the Democratic National opposition to school desegregation or affirmative action lurk considerations Convention. When Shepard reached the podium, Senator Smith of South Caro- that have everything to do with race. Many white Americans may resist changes lina rose from his seat and bolted from the ha!!, dedaring as he went that, "By in the racial status quo not out of principle but out of prejudice. Such prejudice, God, he's black as melted midnight. Get outa my way. This mongrel meeting if it exists, must take a different form from the unvarnished racism expressed ain't no place for a white man." Later Smith explained his protest by saying that by Senator Smith a generation or two ago. The purpose of this chapter is to offer he was "not opposed to any Negro praying for me, but [he didn't] want any a conception of subtle prejudice for modem times and to ascertain its role in blue-gummed, slewfooted Senegambian praying for [him] politically!" Smith contemporary white opinion. refused to lend his support to a Democratic party that, as he put it, "caters to [the Negro] as a political and social equal."' DISTANT ORIGINS Senator Smiths remarks, once thoroughly representative of a particular The origins of race prejudice in America can be traced back at least to the time and place, are unimaginable today. Politicians and officials simply no middle of the sixteenth century, when English voyagers began to encounter longer say such things. Nor, for the most part, do ordinary citizens. Whites' the people of West Africa. At this fateful moment, "one of the fairest-skinned views on racial matters have undergone a sweeping change over the past half- nations suddenly came face to face with one of the darkest peoples on earth."* century, quite unlike any other in the annals of public opinion research. Most Much more than color set the African apart from the English, of course. In the white Americans now say that blacks and whites should attend school together, reports they carried back home, the English explorers portrayed the African as that blacks should have an equal chance to compete for jobs, that segregation utterly different from themselves: as lecherous, apelike, radically defective in of buses and restaurants is wrong, that blacks have a right to live wherever religion, and thoroughly uncivilized. Africans were, by one such account, "a they wish. On matters of principle, whites have become dramatically more people of beastly living, without a God, law, religion, or common wealth."5 egalitarian.* According to Winthrop Jordan, the perception of profound difference provided Against these unmistakable signs of progress, however, are clear indications "the mental margin absolutely requisite for placing the European on the deck of continuing racial discord. While most white Americans believe that prejudice of the slave ship and the Negro in the hold."6 and discrimination are problems of the past, black Americans see prejudice and Whether Jordan was correct, chattel slavery was well established in the En- discrimination everywhere.3 And although whites' support for the principles glish colonies by 1700, justified on the ground that the African was fit for slav- of racial equality and integration has increased majestically over the last four ery and for slavery alone. The justification was racist, of course, but it was not decades, their backing for policies designed,to bring equality and integration until slavery came under direct attack by the abolitionists in the early decades about has increased scarcely at all. Indeed, in some cases, white support has of the nineteenth century that the presumption of black inferiority developed actually declined. Today, as we know from Chapter 2, large numbers of whites into a full-blown theory of racism.7 Prior to the abolitionist challenge, slave- believe that the federal government is too generous with blacks, that school holders could defend their practice merely by referring to the fact that slavery desegregation and equal employment opportunity are not the government's was a legally sanctioned economic arrangement. They did not need to make the business, and that affirmative action programs for blacks shouid be abandoned. argument that blacks were inferior; that was simply taken for granted.8 92 I By themselves, such opinions should not be taken as evidence of racial But when Northern abolitionists charged that slavery was evil, Southern 94 I PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION I 95 SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES slaveholders rose to the challenge. They began to argue that slaveholding was decline of biological racism in scientific and popular discourse on race, which a just and virtuous institution, and that Negroes were "destined by provi- took place in the first decades of the twentieth century; second and more com- dence" for slavery? They portrayed the African homeland as barbarous, "the plex was the change set in motion by the struggle for civil rights in the middle scene of unmitigated savagery, cannibalism, devil worship, and licentious- of the century and brought to completion by the epidemic of racial violence ness." They embraced and popularized scientific research that claimed to prove that raced through scores of American cities in the late 1960s. We sketch these the inferiority of the African race. They introduced "miscegenation" into the two changes next. If we want to understand the terminology and logic of ra- American vocabulary, arguing that the abolition of slavery would lead to inter- cial prejudice today, we must be reminded of the forms it took in the imagin- anle pasr.A- squalid condition of the freed black in the North: the "vice and pauperism," the "deafness, insanity, and idiocy," that Calhoun and others took as authoritative THE DECLINE - NOT DEMISE-OF BIOLOGICAL RACISM evidence of blacks' unfitness for freedom. All these arguments in defense of The doctrine of biological racism began as a rationale first for slavery itself slavery transformed what had been an unthinking assumption of racial supe- and later for postemancipation forms of racial oppression. At its center is the riority into a self-conscious theory of racism.*O contention that blacks are an inherently and permanently inferior race. During Slavery and the debate it touched off certainly helped to fortify race preju- the nineteenth century, biological racism was refined and enriched by various dice. And yet, when slavery was abolished, prejudice lived on. Discrimination, intellectual trends and political causes, most notably by the triumph of social segregation, and prejudice continued to flourish-and not only in the South. In Darwinism. These various developments were mainly slight variations on a the view of Leon Litwak, "Discrimination against the Negro and a firmly held constant theme, however. Into the twentieth century, the idea persisted that belief in the superiority of the white race . . . were shared by an overwhelm- blacks were inferior to whites in intelligence and character, and that such inferi- ing majority of white Americans in both the North and the South. Abraham orities were inherent and permanent, a reflection of inborn differences. Lincoln, in his vigorous support of both white supremacy and denial of equal In a shift that Fredrickson calls <'the most fundamental change that occurred rights for Negroes, simply gave expression to almost universal American con- in white racial thinking after the First World War," biological racism was chal- victions."l* As momentous a transformation as it was, emancipation did not lenged and eventually replaced by liberal environmentalism.'5 Racial environ- mean the eradication of prejudice. mentalists insisted that blacks and whites did not differ in any essential way; Race prejudice survived slavery's disappearance no doubt for more than that the observed differences between blacks and whites in economic standing one reason, but not least was the persistence of pervasive racism among Ameri- or artistic achievement were due to differences in environmental conditions, can elites. Until quite recently, prejudice was an eminently respectable idea in not genetic predispositions. Liberal environmentalists thereby challenged the respectable circles. Well into the twentieth century, American institutions of all conventional understanding that blacks were a permanently alien element of sorts, including universities, participated in legitimizing the idea of black infe- the American population. Remove the socially created obstacles that stood in riority. As late as 1921, President Harding felt free to justify his opposition to their way, so went the argument, and blacks would take their rightful and equal "racial amalgamation" on grounds of the "fundamental, eternal, and inescap- place in society. able differences" that he believed placed whites above blacks.'* The ascendance of liberal environmentalism reflects first and foremost a By emphasizing that American race prejudice has a long and durable his- tidal change in American intellectual currents, detectable in a variety of places. tory, we do not mean to imply that it is somehow permanent and immutable. It For one, in the social and biological sciences, the idea of separate and distinct is not. Racial prejudice today is not what it once was; its public expression and races came under relentless attack, which weakened the popular contention private language are different now from what they were in the days of slavery.13 that the "white race" had developed further along the path of evolution? Prejudice is not some fixed and universal prescription. Rather, like other social At the same time, studies began to show that differences between blacks and doctrines, it is altered by turns in intellectual currents, changes in economic whites in mortality and illness could be reduced or eliminated altogether when arrangements, and eruptions of political crisis. Prejudice, we believe, has been variations in housing, nutrition, sanitation, and medical care were taken into transformed twice in this fashion during our own century alone: first was the account. As a consequence, the argument that blacks were an inferior race, 96 I PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREIUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES I 97 "doomed to spin their brutish existence downward into extinction" relin- The virtual disappearance of biological racism from elite circles leaves open quished some of its force.r7 Meanwhile, scores of anthropological studies were the question of whether it also diminished in the minds of average citizens. The celebrating the contributions made by African and Asian societies, and were answer here appears to be yes, though the evidence is fragmentary. One bit revealing huge differences in temperament and personality due, evidently, to comes from a series of careful studies undertaken by Apostle and his colleagues culture. Investigations by Mead and Benedict, among others, argued that hu- in the early 197Os, set in the San Francisco Bay Area and recounted in The man behavior was molded less by genes and more by tradition and custom.'8 Anatomy of Racial Attitudes. In this research, Americans were questioned about And at home came the artistic flowering of the Harlem Renaissance of the the differences they saw between blacks and whites and, most relevant to our 1 . ----. - I - ---- 1 .' +, i - ,. ___-.-_.. +I.__. ---_---.-_ ^^ L~~_ _ -.~ T&L. - - ____^__._ 1 - - 21 ^. ^ ^___ -..-__-.-_ I p . --- Hughes, Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong, and others made relatively few whites attributed racial inequalities to inborn differences: to dif- it more difficult to maintain that blacks were inherently disqualified from dis- ferences in intellectual capacity, differences "in the genes," in the "makeup" tinguished contributions to American life. of blacks and whites, to differences "in the blood." Roughly 6% of Bay Area Perhaps most striking in this broad shift from biology to culture was the whites were in possession of a pure version of a genetic account for racial dif- revolution in the scientific study of intelligence. The superiority of the "Nordic" ferences, and another 16% or so incorporated such thinking partially. Biological type was the standard early result in studies of intelligence, based on the mea- racism was relatively unpopular, therefore, and it was least popular among surement of cranial capacity in the nineteenth century and IQ in the early stages younger and better-educated whites, suggesting that it might be fading away of the twentieth. But then came a series of embarrassing demonstrations that altogether.= differences between racial groups in intellectual performance could be traced Other evidence supports this conclusion more directly. In both the 1972 to differences in cultural or environmental factors. Authoritative conclusions and 1986 NES surveys, white Americans were asked to consider whether they of Nordic superiority and Negro inferiority were retracted; inquiries into the thought blacks came from a less-able race. In 1972, 31% of white Americans genetic foundations for racial differences in intelligence quietly disappeared.19 subscribed to the view that blacks were disabled by virtue of their biological All in all, a remarkable transformation had taken place. At the turn of the inheritance; by 1986, the percentage had fallen to 14%." century, the social scientific investigation of race was preoccupied with the pa- Another and final example pertains to the allegation of racial differences in thologies of Negro life, interpreting such pathologies as evidence of the inferi- intelligence. Beginning with a national survey carried out by NORC in 1942, ority and alien nature of the Negro, condemned by heredity to a permanent low white Americans have been asked periodically whether they think blacks and station. Two or three decades later, racial inequalities were taken as evidence of whites are equal in native intelligence. In 1942, fewer than half of the whites pervasive prejudice and discrimination. Under the new intellectual regime, the interviewed (47%) agreed that blacks were the intellectual equal of whites; by Negro "problem" was situated in the hearts and minds of white citizens and in 1956,80% did so. This is a remarkable increase in so short a time, offering fur- the discriminatory practices of white society. ther testimony to the declining fortunes of biological racism.24 By the Second World War, liberal environmentalism had taken over Ameri- From several quarters, then, it seems reasonable to conclude that racial can social science. We presume that its entrenchment was a reflection of a more thinking underwent an important change in twentieth-century America, and general turn toward egalitarianism among American elites, and that the liberal not only among white elites but also within the white public generally. The environmentalists positioned in America's most prestigious universities con- notion of genetic difference, of permanent disadvantage, is now less prominent tributed directly to a more racially egalitarian public discourse." Following than it once was. The biological argument has not disappeared altogether, but the war, their cause was perhaps advanced by "revulsion against the racism of it has diminished. Racial prejudice no longer hangs on the contention that the Nazis" and by American leaders' embarrassment over flagrant incidents of blacks are an inferior race, incapacitated from the outset by their biological racial discrimination at home that undermined.efforts to compete with the So- inheritance. viet Union for the loyalty of the peoples of Asia and Africa.*l Public discussions The decline of biological racism must not be equated with the decline of of race came to be dominated by the assumptions of liberal environmentalism, racism generally. That most white Americans no longer subscribe to the view and this continues to be true, for the most part, today. that blacks are crippled by inferior genetic endowment is a sign of real progress, 98 I PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES I 99 800 but it does not mean that white Americans are now color-blind. As biological racism has declined, a new form of racial prejudice has appeared, shaped by 700 i% 2.4% f the racial crisis of the middle part of the century. 600 2 0 500 1.8% 3 FROM CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE TO URBAN VIOLENCE: 400 E TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE BLACK IMAGE z DURING THE KING YEARS 300 1.2% ; twentieth 200 E , eventually brought a social, economic, and political transformation to the South 100 and to the nation. In courtrooms, blacks pressed claims on an increasingly sym- 0 pathetic federal judiciary. In the streets-or more precisely, on buses and street- cars, and at l-unch co-unters and department stores-blacks challenged the stat- utes and customs designed to keep them in their place. And in the halls of FIGURE 5.1 Civil rights demonstrations and coverage of civil rights demonstrations in the Congress, the civil rights movement finally succeeded in securing passage New York Times, 1940-l 971. Source: Burstein 1985, pp. 74,80. of landmark legislation that made discrimination illegal. Blacks' demands for equal rights triggered a massive and violent resistance in the Deep South, pro- voked a white backlash in the nation as a whole, and set in motion a racial slanted, magazines disappeared from the stands, television pro- grams were withheld, films were excluded. Teachers, preachers, reorientation in American party politics. This tumultuous time was capped by and college professors were questioned, harassed, and many were the outbreak of armed conflict and civil disorder in scores of American cities driven from their positions or fled the South. The N.A.A.C.P. was and, in the spring of 1968, by the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. virtually driven underground in some states. Words began to shift Nothing like this had taken place since the debate over slavery and the Civil and lose their common meaning. A "moderate" became a man who War more than 100 years before. What did white Americans see during this dared to open his mouth, an "extremist" one who favored eventual tempestuous period and, more important, what lessons were they likely to compliance with the law, and "compliance" took on the connota- draw about black Americans as a consequence?25 tions of treason. Politicians who had once spoken for moderation The first public stirrings of the modem civil rights movement took place began to vie with each other in defiance of government.27 in the 1950s in a series of protests and boycotts, first in Baton Rouge, then in In the face of increasing intimidation and violence, black Americans never- Montgomery, Tallahassee, and Birmingham. The most famous of these was the theless continued to protest for their rights. Figure 5.1 shows the number of civil Montgomery bus boycott, characterized by Aldon Morris as "the watershed of rights demonstrations each year from 1940 to 1972. The figure displays an initial the modem civil rights movement," not least because it launched the political spike of activity at the time of the Montgomery bus boycott, and then another career of Martin Luther King, Jr., recently arrived from Atlanta to assume the and more sustained surge during the Kennedy years. In 1963 alone, more than post of pastor for the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.Z6 The historic significance 700. civil rights demonstrations took place. Most occurred in the South and of Montgomery is beyond dispute, but from the perspective of white America were protests against local conditions, but they were intended to be witnessed at the time, the commotion in Montgomery was not all that visible, little more by Americans all over the country, as indeed they were. Vivid accounts of than a premonition. the struggle for civil rights under way in such places as Oxford, Mississippi, In the meantime, the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation and Birmingham, Alabama, began to creep into national news reporting. Civil in the public schools was provoking a panic in the South. By 1957, according to rights protesters who sat in at segregated lunch counters or hotels were hauled C. Vann Woodward, away and jailed; marchers were flattened by high-pressure water hoses and a fever of rebellion and a malaise of fear spread over the re- -mauled by police dogs; movement headquarters were dynamited; efforts to gion. Books were banned, libraries were purged, newspapers were desegregate public schools were greeted with full-pitched riots. These melo- 100 I PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES I 101 dramatic confrontations made terrific stories. Civil rights was national news In the aftermath of "bloody Selma," where blacks intent on peacefully petition- (also revealed in figure 5.1). ing Governor Wallace for the right to vote were set upon by state troopers and In the meantime, President Johnson was pushing civil rights as a top legis- local police officers, and beaten, trampled, and teargassed, President Johnson lative priority. In July 1964, in the wake of the longest legislative debate summoned a joint session of Congress.29 In an evening address broadcast to the in the history of the U.S. Congress and over the fierce objection of Southern nation, Johnson embraced both the methods and the aspirations of the Selma Democrats, the Civil Rights Bill became law. Discrimination on account of demonstrators, calling for the prompt passage of a voting rights bill, insisting "race, color, religion, or national origin" was now illegal. To the British histo- on "no delay, no hesitation, no compromise. 'I30 After some months of skir- rian J. R. Pole, the Civil Rights Act represented a legislative revolution . .- a b&drop of continuing violence in the South. Congress can history: for the first time, "equality became a major object of government finally delivered. The president signed the Voting Rights Act into law on Au- policy."Z8 gust 6, 1965, thereby bringing to completion a year of remarkable legislative The act also became a central part of the 1964 presidential campaign, thanks achievements for civil rights. In the assessment of C. Vann Woodward, "Noth- io no smal! c3easure to Senator Gold-.--'--'- J " ..^^^^^ :- cap~~~~ks LI^ party's VYCLLCL JuccrDo u1 --...I.....:-- ~1~3 ,A....:,n LILc I.: I, IILvlILelI(LD,.z h7g cojrLparable had ever happ-dcILcu L/.L,.., den uulug CL., .,gAc --- vclvIc n. ,e, uI presidential nomination. In his campaign, Goldwater argued against the en- the First Reconstruction."3* croachments of the federal government in private affairs in general and against Political tempests in Washington often go unnoticed by citizens around the the civil rights legislation sponsored by the Johnson administration in particu- country, but this rule does not apply to the racial crisis of the 1960s. To an un- lar. Partly as a consequence, Goldwater did splendidly in the American South. usual degree, the struggle for civil rights caught and held the public's attention. Outside the Deep South, however, the Republican campaign was a disaster: One way to see this is by scanning figure 5.2, which summarizes the results of Goldwater carried only his home state of Arizona and was buried under a more than 100 national surveys conducted between 1946 and 1976. In each, landslide of historic proportions. Americans were asked to nominate the most important problems facing the Following his overwhelming victory, President Johnson gave clear indica- country. The question was completely open-ended; people could say whatever tions that government must do more than guarantee civil rights. In a major they wished. Before the Montgomery bus boycott, as the figure indicates, vir- address delivered at Howard University in 1965, Johnson argued ihat the black tually no American mentioned civil rights. But as the movement gathered mo- community had "been twisted and battered by endless years of hatred and mentum, civil rights made its way into the national news and eventually into hopelessness." In language little different from that employed by Dr. King, the public consciousness. The figure shows several sharp rises associated with president characterized the ghetto as "a world of decay, ringed by an invisible wall," where "escape is arduous and uncertain, and the saving pressures of a more hopeful society are unknown." The president backed up his rhetoric with Social Disorder a flurry of new programs: VISTA, Head Start, Model Cities, the Office of Eco- nomic Opportunity, and more. Discrimination in voting was to be eliminated through the Voting Rights Bill, passed in 1965. The president established the Department of Housing and Urban Development, putting in place for the first time the capacity to develop and carry out an urban policy, and appointed Robert Weaver its secretary, the first black cabinet member in U.S. history. John- son pressed for and eventually obtained legislation to prohibit discrimination in the housing market, through the Fair Housing Act of 1968. And he appointed Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court, the ninety-sixth j&ice and the first O%-- ---- black, some twenty-five years after Marshall had argued the Brown school de- * s % % w ;: : z $ 8 8 z E c x 2 % $ segregation case. z z z z ? z z z z v z 2 z z c Of all these, perhaps Johnson's most notable accomplishment was the Voting FIGURE 5.2 Percentage of the American public choosing civil rights or social disorder as the Rights Act, the long-delayed triumph of the struggle to secure the right to vote. country's most important problem, 1946-l 976. Source: Smith 1980, pp. 170,171. 102 I PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES I 103 dramatic events, like the Little Rock school desegregation controversy in 1957, Stuyvesant, and Rochester in late July, and in Jersey City, Elizabeth, Paterson, followed by a sustained takeoff in the latter half of 1963, stimulated, presum- and North Philadelphia in August-but they were, relatively speaking, short- ably, by the events taking place in Birmingham. Through most of 1964 and 1965, lived and easily contained. 36In Watts the violence raged unchecked for three Americans-north and south-regarded civil rights as the nation's most im- days, and three days longer in sporadic eruptions. Blacks looted stores, set fires, portant problem. For one extended moment, from the bombings in Birmingham burned cars, and shot at policemen and firemen. Before the violence was halted, to the march in Selma, the fight over civil rights commanded center stage.32 14,000 National Guard troops, 1,000 police officers, and more than 700 sheriff's And with what consequence? Faced with this historic run of events, many deputies were pressed into service. More than 46 square miles-an area larger white Americans appeared to come to a new conclusion: that SPU ontrol. In the end, 1.000 buildings were discrimination were wrong, that black Americans should enjoy the same formal damaged, burned, looted, or completely destroyed; almost 4,000 people were rights and opportunities as whites. On questions of broad principle of equal arrested; more than 1,000 were injured seriously enough to require medical treatment and opportunity, a massive shift of white opinion was taking place.33 treatment; and 34 were dead, all but three black.37 Presumably some of this change w=- u A 3 ..irect reflection of what -whites saw. As horrifying as Watts was, it was merely the beginring. Soon came *np- To the national audience, the sit-ins, boycotts, marches, freedom rides, and es- risings in Chicago, New York, Newark, Detroit, and in many other cities, large pecially the outpouring of violence such protests provoked, vividly exposed the and small, in every section of the country. In 1967 alone, more than 250 serious discriminatory practices and racial hatred that prevented blacks from claiming disturbances took place. For one long hot summer after another, Americans their rights as citizens. Moreover, these dramatic scenes often came accompa- watched what appeared to be the coming apart of their own country. On the nied by a kind of moral instruction. President Kennedy, President Johnson, and front page of their morning newspapers and on their television screens in the other prominent figures came to interpret massive resistance as evidence of a evening appeared drarnaatic and frightening pictures of devastation and ruin: glaring moral defect, a failure to live up to America's historic commitment to cities on fire, mobs of blacks looting stores and hurling rocks at police, tanks egalitarian ideals. As one example, in the midst of the beatings and botibings rumbling down the avenues of American cities. Along with the riots came taking place in Birmingham, President Kennedy began an address to the nation a new rhetoric that frightened many whites and splintered black leadership: by asserting that "we are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as-old there was less talk of nonviolence and more of self-defense; less yearning for as the Scriptures and it is as clear as the American Constitution. The heart of integration and more for solidarity and black nationalism; "We shall overcome" the quest.ion is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal was replaced by Black Power and "bum, baby, bum." opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans.as we want If the civil rights movement and the flagrantly racist reaction it incited com- to be treated. . . ."N In much the same spirit, President Johnson, in his speech to pelled many white Americans to express their support for racial equality as a Congress and the nation calling for immediate action on voting rights, con- matter of principle, the riots and the new belligerent rhetoric pushed them in cluded that "equality depends not on the force of arms or tear gas but upon the quite a different direction. As we saw earlier, civil rights was widely regarded force of moral right."35 as the nation's most important problem in 1964 and 1965, but began to fade soon What white Americans saw and whit they heard turned out to be a power- thereafter and disappeared entirely by the mid-1970s. Whites seemed to believe ful combination. In important spheres of life-education, public accommoda- that the national government had successfully swept away all the barriers and tions, employment, housing, and more-whites moved toward equality. Seg- obstacles that had stood in the way of black participation in American society. regation and discrimination were losing ground. Concern for the predicament Segregation was being dismantled. Discrimination was illegal. Voting rights blacks faced was understood to be consistent with American principles. One were being enforced. In the view of many white Americans, the problem of race legacy of the civil rights movement, we believe, was this bundling together, in was solved. public debate and private attitude, of egalitarian ideals and racial sympathy. Or rather that problem of race was solved. Public discussion of the "race But as civil disobedience in the South was replaced by violence in the cities problem" in America no longer referred to ensuring equal rights and opportu- everywhere, it was not the only lesson white Americans were likely to draw. nities for blacks--that, apparently, had already been accomplished. Instead, Five days after the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, the Watts riot discussion centered on the threat that inner-city blacks posed to social order exploded. Riots had broken out the previous summer-in Harlem, Bedford- and public safety. This point is made emphatically in figure 5.2. As Americans - ._. 104 I PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES I 105 lost interest in civil rights, they became preoccupied with violence and disorder own way, gave public expression to simmering racial resentments. By interpret- in the cities.% ing inner-city violence and poverty as glaring manifestations of the failure of This change reflects a transformation in the characterization of race relations blacks to live up to American values, and by placing these problems at the cen- dominating news reports and public discourse. Before Watts, the typical picture ter of their campaigns, Wallace, Nixon, and Reagan, among others, helped to looked something like this: neatly dressed blacks, petitioning peacefully for create and legitimize a new form of prejudice. They did not promote biological their basic rights, crouched on the ground, being pummeled with nightsticks racism: they were not white supremacists; they did not allege genetic impair- and set upon by police dogs. After Watts, Americans were instead witness to ments; they did not promise a return to segregation; they did not imply that pictures of mobs of - voung-, city black% hmhngbrrtiks at ,pohc e -L-'u, -n&g . rwc IVACIIUL biacks were second-ciass cimnat tney snoma be treated drnerently than their own neighborhoods, and looting stores of all that they could carry. Such anyone else. Their message was subtle, rather than blatant: it was that blacks pictures invited the conclusion from whites that after all that had been done for should behave themselves. They should take quiet advantage of the ample op- blacks, after all that had been given to them, it was not enough. Blacks wanted portunities now provided them. Government had been too generous, had given more, they demanded more-and they took it. blacks too much, and blacks, for their part, had accepted these gifts all too The riots opened up a huge racial rift. Fear and revulsion against the vio- readily. Discrimination was illegal, opportunities were plentiful. Blacks should lence were widespread among both white and black Americans, but whites work their way up without handouts or special favors in a society that was now were much more likely to condemn those who participated in the riots and color-blind. more eager for the police and National Guard to retaliate against them.s9 Where At the core of this new resentment was not whether blacks possessed the blacks saw the riots as expressions of legitimate grievances, whites were in- inborn ability to succeed, but rather whether they would try. Now that all major clined to explain them as eruptions of black hatred and senseless criminality obstacles to their improvement had supposedly been removed, would blacks incited by outside agitators. To many white Americans, then, the civil disorders apply themselves, as others had before them? One might say that black Ameri- of the 1960s amounted to an appalling collective mugging.40 cans would now be judged as Martin Luther King had wished, that is, by the Understood in this way, the riots created a crisis for liberalism. President "content of their character." The riots specifically and inner-city life generally Johnson attempted to distinguish between the movement for civil rights-the were interpreted by many whites as repudiations of individualism, sacred "orderly struggle for civil rights that has ennobled the last decade"-and the American commitments to hard work, discipline, and self-sacrifice. violence and destruction that were sweeping through American cities. This was And more was to come. The riots that had handed the political advantage a difficult distinction to sell, and the political advantage moved decisively to to conservatives were followed by a series of contentious public issues entan- the conservatives: gled in race, which, to many whites, exposed both the misguided benevolence of major American institutions and the moral deficiency of blacks unwilling to Liberals faced the burden of explaining why the riots occurred after make it honestly on their own. These included allegations of fraud and abuse so many of the things which they had promised would solve the problems had already been done. They faced accusations that they in the welfare system, explosions of crime, the dissolution of the traditional were unwilling to uphold public order and were proposing to family, the plague of drugs, and dependence on government handouts. Most reward rather than punish communities that had spawned mass recently, public debate on matters of race has focused on affirmative action. Op- violence. Politically, liberals suddenly found themselves on the ponents of affirmative action see government requiring employers to give jobs defensive, no longer occupying the high moral ground. fntellectu- and promotions to underqualified blacks, schools filling up with ill-prepared ally, they were far from certain about what was required or what and undeserving black students, judges redrawing district lines to guarantee would work.41 black candidates safe election, and colleges caving in to black students with ._ codes that restrict speech and multicultural curricula that ridicule traditional After the riots, conservative arguments took on new appeal, now in tune learning. with white apprehensions. There was less talk about equality and more about Each of these episodes has provided a public stage for the creation and ex- law and order. Onto the national stage strutted George Wallace, followed in pression of racial animosity. A new form of prejudice has come to prominence, short order by the "new" Richard Nixon and by Ronald Reagan. Each, in his one that is preoccupied with matters of moral character, informed by the virtues 106 1 PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES 1 107 associated with the traditions of individualism. At its center are the contentions Table 5.1 Racial Resentment among White Americans that blacks do not try hard enough to overcome the difficulties they face and 1. Most blacks who receive money from welfare programs could get along without it if they tried. that they take what they have not earned. Today, we say, prejudice is expressed Agree strongly 25.4% in the language of American individualism. Agree somewhat 35.3 Neither agree nor disagree 14.2 THE MEANING AND MEASUREMENT OF RACIAL RESENTMENT Disagree somewhat 18.7 Disagree strongly 6.5 With these developments in mind, we attempted to measure racial resent- 2. Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they a oatrery 01 SIX questions mcluded m the 19?KmS,*2 Ea& question Agree strongly 3.3 was presented as an assertion; whites were asked to indicate whether they Agree somewhat is.4 agreed or disagreed with each, and how strongly they did so: Neither agree nor disagree 22.8 Disagree somewhat 38.0 Irish, Italian, Jewish and many other minorities overcame prejudice and Disagree strongly 20.5 worked their way up. Blacks sizouid do fhe same wifhouf any special 3. Government officials usua!!y pay !ess attention to a request or complaint from a black person than from a white person. favors. Agree strongly 3.9 Generations of slavey and discrimination have created condifions that Agree somewhat 17.8 Neither agree nor disagree 28.3 make it d@cultfor blacks to work their way out of the lower class. Disagree somewhat 30.5 If's really a matter of some people not tying hard enough; if blacks Disagree strongly 19.4 would only ty harder they could be just as well off as whites. 4. Irish, Italian, Jewish and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve. same without any special favors. Agree strongly 32.9 Most blacks who receive money fuom welfare programs could get along Agree somewhat 33.7 without it if thy fried. Neither agree nor disagree 12.4 Disagree somewhat 16.2 Government ojicials usually pay less attention to a request or complaint Disagree strongly 4.7 from a black person tfzanfrom a white person. [In past studies, we have asked people why they think white people seem to get more of the good things in life in America-such as better jobs and more money-than black people Compared with most efforts to measure racial animosity, these questions do. These are some of the reasons given by both blacks and whites.] should appear rather subtle. They do not require whites to declare in straight- 5. It's really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off forward fashion that blacks are dim-witted or lazy or promiscuous. Their ap- as whites. proach is more roundabout. The questions distinguish between those whites Agree strongly 22.4 who are generally sympathetic toward blacks and those who are generally un- Agree somewhat 36.9 Neither agree nor disagree 13.3 sympathetic. It could be said that our questions do for race what Adorno's Au- Disagree somewhat 19.1 thoritarian Personalify did for anti-Semitism. The famous "F-scale" that Adomo Disagree strongly 8.2 and his research team employed to measure authoritarianism was composed of 6. Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it diffictilt for blacks to work their way questions that resemble ours, in that they were carefully formulated, as Roger out of the lower class. Brown put it, "to express a subtle hostility without seeming to offend the demo- Agree strongly 17.0 cratic values that most subjects would feel bound to support. Each question has Agree somewhat 41 .l a kind of fair-minded and reasonable veneer. It is sometimes rather difficult to Neither agree nor disagree 9.8 Disagree somewhat 19.2 find the sting."" Disaeree stronglv 12.9 As table 5.1 reveals, many white Americans are quite prepared to express Source: 1986 National Election Study. such a "subtle hostility" toward blacks. Substantial majorities agreed that if 108 I PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES I 109 blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites; that most example, the first question presented in table 5.1 implies that the prejudice blacks who receive money from welfare programs could get along without it if faced by blacks is no different from the prejudice faced by the Irish, the Italian, they tried; and that blacks should overcome prejudice on their 'own without any or the Jews-which is false. But the core of the question goes to whether special favors. Likewise, many rejected the assertion that blacks have gotten less blacks deserve special help, and it is hard to imagine authoritative evidence on than they deserve in recent years; that blacks receive less attention from govem- whether whites who claim blacks should work their way up without any spe- ment officials than whites do; or that generations of slavery and discrimination cial favors are, or are not, mistaken. If we insist that prejudice is thinking ill of have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way into others without sufficient warrant, then we cannot say here with perfect confi- the middle class.44 . ApnJ-P that w--J_ . L L U&L "I -+-J--c '-7 .4 ___. Lb -*cm.. _ y'y"u'\- Prejudice, finally, is defined also by its inflexibility. Im$cit here is a distinc- Racial Resentment = Racial Prejudice? tion between ordinary errors of misjudgment and the more serious and sinister Are white Americans who express such views prejudiced? The answer de- case of prejudice. As Allport put it, "lf a person is capable of rectifying his pends on what is -meant by prejjudice. This is an important and delicate point, erroneous judgments in the light of new evidence, he is not prejudiced. Pre- worth a bit of our time. judgments become prejudice only when they are not reversible when exposed Prejudice, according to Gordon Allport, is "an antipathy based on a faulty to new information." 48We simply do not have any evidence that goes directly and inflexible generalization. It may be felt or expressed. It may be directed to this point. People hold on to their racial resentments with unusual tenacity, toward a group as a whole, or toward an individual because he is a member of as we will see later, but this does not satisfy Allport's stronger claim. that group."45 The questions we use to measure racial resentment certainly ful- In short, "racial resentment," as we use the term here, should not be con- fill some of Allport's requirements. For one thing, our questions focus on blacks fused with racial prejudice, as Allport defines it. We cannot be certain that the as a group. The questions are categorical and abstract; they take as their frame racially unsympathetic sentiments spelled out in table 5.1 are expressions of of reference blacks as a whole. presumption and ignorance, and we do not know for sure whether whites The questions also have a strong evaluative component; they were designed might reverse their position should they be presented with evidence on the to reveal "antipathy." They do so, notice, without making reference to genetic other side. This is tricky business, and we are not done with it yet: in the book's inferiority, so common to white supremacist ideology and to southern cam- final chapter, we will come round again to the question of prejudice. paigns of a generation ago. In recognition of the decline of biological racism, In other respects, our measure of racial resentment lives up to the empirical the questions focus not on the inborn abilities of blacks, but on how hard blacks requirements normally expected of prejudice, as we will see over the next sev- are willing to try. The questions are preoccupied with character: effort, enter- eral pages. That is, racial resentment is coherent and stable, just as racial preju- prise, and determination. As portrayed in these questions, the "problem of dice is expected to be; its expression is curtailed in the presence of black Ameri- race" is not the threat that blacks might pose to whites' personal safety or to cans, a sign that whites recognize that blacks would take offense; it powerfully their material well-being, but to their sense of civic virtue. To whites who agree predicts derogatory racial stereotypes, which are often thought to be the core with the premise of these questions, blacks constitute a moral threat, one that of prejudice, and it is associated with, but distinct from, biological forms of challenges "how we are to order our lives and our life as a community."46 racism, which it has largely replaced. So far our questions fit the classic definition of prejudice reasonably well. Racial Resentment Is Coherent But what about Allport's insistence that prejudiced beliefs are erroneous, that prejudice is rooted in a "faulty" generalization? It is conceivable for people to answer the questions set out in table 5.1 in It would not be hard to make a case that the assertion "if blacks would only ways that have little to do with race. For example, those who say that if blacks try harder they could be just as well off as whites" is wrongjjust as it is wrong only tried harder they could be as well off as whites might be expressing faith to deny that generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions in individual initiative in general. Or those who agree with the notion that that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class. In both blacks should work their way up without special help might be signaling com- cases, what we are calling the racially resentful position is faulty. But on our mitment to the ideal of equal treatment. It is conceivable, but this would mean other questions, it is more difficult to determine which answer is correct. For that the sentiments expressed in table 5.1 would not really belong together. 110 I PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES I111 Table 5.2 Pearson Correlations between Answers to the Racial Resentment Questions group other than their own. 51As children's cognitive abilities mature, they come 1 2 3 4 5 6 to understand racial categories as permanent and immutable and their percep- I - tion of differences between racial groups is accentuated.5z By the early adult 2 .39 3 .19 .40 years, racial ideas are difficult to reverse; at this stage, race has become a stan- 4 .50 .43 .19 dard and automatic way of categorizing and evaluating the social world. As 5 .51 .37 .I6 .56 Allport once put it, "A prejudice, unlike a simple misconception, is actively 6 .31 .40 .24 .37 .38 - resistant to all evidence that would unseat it."53 Source: 1986 National Election Study. Note:Questions are given in full in table 5.1. answer the NES questions in essentially the same way when offered a second chance. We can see whether this is so by taking advantage of the 1990-92 NES They would be a hodge-podge of complaints, each reflecting a different be- panel design. Roughly one-half of those interviewed in the 1992 NES study lief or value. Against this, we say that the various resentments expressed in were first questioned in 1990, and on both occasions they were asked the same table 5.1 constitute a coherent system of ideas, one centering on black Ameri- four racial resentment questions, a subset of the original six. cans. Resentment over blacks getting ahead unfairly is the one theme that runs One standard way to give mathematical representation to individual sta- through all six questions. If we are right, then whites who agree that if blacks bility is through the Pearson correlation coefficient. In this context, a Pearson would only try harder, they would be as well off as whites should also be in- correlation of 1.0 would mean perfect stability: an ordering of white Americans clined to deny that slavery and discrimination have created conditions that by their scores on the racial resentment scale administered in 1990 would cor- impede black progress, to agree that blacks should work their way up without respond exactly to the ordering revealed by their 1992 scores. A correlation of any special favors, and so on through all the questions. 0.0, in contrast, would mean perfect instability: racial resentment scores in 1990 Table 5.2 reveals that white Americans show just this kind of consistency. bear no relation to scores two years later. The table presents evidence on the degree of association between answers For the racial resentment scale, the Pearson correlation between the 1990 to each pair of questions, as indexed by the Pearson correlation coefficient.49 and 1992 observations is .68. This estimate of continuity is well above the zero Judged against normal standards, the correlations displayed there are quite chaos point, but falls visibly short of perfect stability. So how stable is racial strong, ranging from .16 to .56, and averaging .36. Thus the ostensibly diverse resentment? How big is .68? sentiments expressed by the racial resentment questions are not in fact a mis- One answer is provided by comparing the Pearson correlation of .68 with cellaneous collection; they do indeed reflect an empirically coherent outlook. continuity estimates of other political sentiments. From this perspective, racial White Americans answer these questions as if they had one thing primarily resentment looks quite stable: substantially more stable than views on equality in mind.50 (Pearson Y = .49), ideological identification (r = .49), or positions on various matters of public policy (Pearson r's hover around .4). Whites' racial resent- Racial Resentment Is Stable ments even approach the stability of their identification with a political party Prejudice is an acquired taste. Children enter the world free of any such (r = .79), widely regarded as providing the stability benchmark for political animosity, but their innocence is temporary, for they are born into a world attitudes." in which socially significant distinctions are already in place. By the time Thus a Pearson correlation of .68, viewed comparatively, is quite impressive, American children enter elementary school, they know that racial groups exist, and it is the more impressive when we recognize that it almost certainly under- and that persons belong to such groups on the basis of observable charac- estimates the real stability of racial resentment. Our observations of change teristics: skin color, facial features, the texture of their hair.'They know which over time reflect a mixture of real instability (white Americans' changing their racial group they belong to, and they know which racial groups are good and minds about black Americans) and artificial instability (produced by inevitable which are bad. White children have strong positive associations with the term errors in our measures). With this in mind, it would be useful to produce an "white," referring both to color and to race, and strong negative associations estimate of the stability of racial resentment once the intrusions of unreliability with "black"; and they almost never express a wish to be a member of a racial are removed. SUBTLE PREjUDlCE FOR MODERN TIMES 1113 112 I PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION We do this in two ways. Both procedures require that we have multiple mea- Racial Resentment Is Conditioned by Race of Interviewer sures of racial resentment on more than one occasion, as we do. The first follows In Chapter 2 we argued that in a society like our own, characterized by the standard recommendation from test theory in psychometrics? With esti- mates of the reliability of the racial resentment scale in each year, we can correct racial segregation and tension, an extended conversation between a black per- son and a white person is unlikely to be experienced as innocuous by either the correlation of .68 for the unreliability due to random measurement error (correction for attenuation, as it is called). When we do so, the correlation rises party. And indeed we found that whites interviewed by blacks expressed less to .89. This means that if we had in our possession perfectly reliable measures conservative views on matters of race policy than did whites interviewed by of Ac%al LLaenrrrlcL~r \I11yu,lc of t;"pFImules (- + eqJloyeu ill uw 177"--YL NES panel study), we would have found a correlation of .89 (rather than .68). The same should hold true for the expression of racial resentment-and it does. When questioned by black interviewers, whites appeared less resentful And a correlation of .89 over a two-year period, though not quite perfect, is certainly consistent with the claim that racial resentment, like prejudice, is dif- than they did when they were questioned by white interviewers. The effect is ficuit to reverse.56 not iarge, b-ut it hOidS for five of the Six CpeSuu~~ L~KT~LIIIUIVIUULLII~, IUI h~tl scale as a whole, and with the effects due to social background character- A second way to partition unreliability from stability makes use of con- firmatory factor analysis. Here we treat racial resentment as a latent variable in istics statistically held constant. Race-of-interviewer effects also show up, this order to estimate the correlation between resentment in 1990 and 1992, with time more sizably, in both the 1988 and 1992 National Election Studies. That unreliability once again removed. The results, shown in table 5.3, indicate that whites present themselves differently to a black interviewer than to a white the model fits the data reasonably well. Each of the four questions loads sub- interviewer is consistent with the claim that we are really measuring racial stantially on the racial resentment factor, and the pattern of the loadings is resentment.M highly similar across the two years. This model estimates the stability correla- Racial Resentment Predicts Derogatory Stereotypes tion between resentment in 1990 and resentment in 1992 to be .78. Once the random and systematic components of unreliability are removed, therefore, Social animosity is often expressed through stereotypes, pejorative beliefs that in-group members hold toward members of outgroups. As a further test racial resentment is once again revealed to be stable-not perfectly stable, not of the validity of our measure of racial resentment, we examined the extent to fiued, but predominantly stable.57 which scores on the racial resentment scale predict endorsement of traditional racial stereotypes. This analysis is possible because the 1992 NES included both Table 5.3 Stability of Racial Resentment, 1990-l 992 (confirmatory factor analysis) our measures of racial resentment and a set of stereotype questions originally Factor Loadings developed at the National Opinion Research Center for the General Social Resentment,, Resentment,, Survey.59 Blacks gotten less than deserved.,,, Jn some ways the GSS stereotype questions are similar to the questions we .57 Blacks should work their way up,, .a2 have been analyzing. Like their NES counterparts, the GSS questions are cate- Blacks need only try harder,, .79 gorical and abstract, in that they take as their frame of reference blacks as a Slavery and discrimination,, .53 group. But the GSS questions mix old, or biological, and new, or individualistic, Blacks gotten less than deserved,, .65 Blacks should work their way up,, .76 forms of animosity. One item questions blacks' intelligence, consistent with a Blacks need only try harder,, 30 central claim of biological racism; another questions blacks' effort and motiva- Slavery and discrimination,, .57 tion, consistent with a central claim of racial resentment. And finally, the GSS .. questions take quite a different form from what we have used to measure racial Correlation between Resentment,, and Resentment,, = .78 Chi-square with 15 degrees of freedom = 90.41 resentment. Here citizens are presented with a series of paired antonyms (hard- Goodness of fit = ,960 working versus lazy, say) and asked to judge whether members of some desig- Adjusted goodness of fit = .905 Root mean square residual = ,053 nated group (blacks, for example) are mostly hardworking, mostly lazy, or Source: 1990-92 National Election Panel Study. somewhere in between. In the 1992 NES, three pairs of antonyms were in- .- - 114 I PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES Ill5 eluded: hardworking versus lazy, unintelligent versus intelligent, and violent three closely associated with biological forms of racism. This suggests the dis- versus peaceful. tinctiveness of contemporary racial resentment from its biological predecessor, By comparing the judgments whites offer about blacks to those they make an issue we take up more directly next. about their own racial group, it is possible to derive a measure of racial stereo- typing. And according to the 1992 NES results, most white Americans do in fact Racial Resentment !s Distinct from Biological Racism subscribe to racial stereotypes. That is, they believe that blacks are less hard- We have argued that contemporary expressions of prejudice no longer cen- working than whites, that blacks are more violent than whites, and that blacks ter on claims of racial inferiority rooted in biology. Today, we say, prejudice is are less intelligent +&an whites. Some whites see no difference between the I I with iIl.born E&xl ity and more with effort and initiativp. races, but most of the variation among white Americans is in Izow inferior black does racial resentment really constitute a new form? Or is it in fact indistin- Americans are, whether the racial superiority that whites enjoy in essential ca- guishable from nineteenth-century biological racism? pacities and fundamental qualities is overwhelming or slight. Remember that the 1986 NES included a question that was intended to elicit P.., %.-^;^I ,,,,xr-,.v.c.-.-A:-l- ^^ L" ^.._ way ,.L ULLLllQlL~:L -..-' LCULLaClal IlxxzII,I,IcIII yIcuIcL, a3 I.^ "UI _.r^__ "1 LLZ-I :-- IL lllUDL, AL,. ,..rC^-L ULCc*LclLL in straightforward ^ ULLVC~LL~~J~LCU fashion thy _-^r.^ -:"L,.A ..-A.-- ,c CL,. American past, the ~1 ~~LLJLLL ULC to which white Americans subscribe to such stereotypes? To find out, we coded claim that blacks are genetically inferior. Respondents were asked whether they the three stereotype measures O-l, with 1.0 representing complete endorse- agreed or disagreed with the assertion that blacks were less we!1 off in America ment of the stereotype, 0.0 its complete reversal, and 0.5 the color-blind view because they "come from a less able race." As noted earlier, by 1986, most that blacks and whites differ not at all. We then simply regressed each of the whites, but far from all, rejected biological inferiority as an explanation for ra- stereotype measures against our measure of racial resentment (also coded O-l). cial differences.6O The results, shown in table 5.4, indicate that racial resentment and racial It would be surprising and, from a theoretical point of view, disconcerting stereotyping are indeed closely related. White Americans who express racial if the position white Americans took toward the claim of black genetic inferi- sympathy on the racial resentment scale (a perfect score of 0) show up almost ority turned out to be completely unrelated to racial resentment as we have precisely at the color-blind 0.5 neutral point on all three stereotype measures: defined and measured it here. Old-fashioned bigotry and contemporary racial they say whites and blacks are indistinguishable. At the same time, white resentment share an attitude of hostility toward black Americans, and this Americans at the other end of the racial resentment scale (with a perfect score should be reflected in a positive relationship between them. On the other hand, of 1) are predicted to score around .65 on the stereotype measures: they say we would be equally disconcerted if the relationship turned out to be strong. whites are much smarter, much harder working, and much less violent. The Whites who believe blacks to be their biological inferiors might resent the spe- impact of racial resentment on racial stereotypes is strong in all three cases, but cial help that blacks supposedly receive, but they also might think that blacks it is least strong, by some 50%, for beliefs about intelligence, the one item of the require such help precisely because of their genetic handicap. Similarly, whites who express indignation over blacks failing to live up to the standards of self- sacrifice and'self-reliance may genuinely reject the claim of biological inferi- Table 5.4 Predicting Racial Stereotypes from Racial Resentment ority. Old-fashioned bigotry and contemporary racial resentment are related, Blacks Are Comparatively but distinct, concepts-or so we say. Lazy Unintelligent Violent The relevant evidence runs this way. Answers to the genetic inferiority Racial resentment .18 .I2 .19 question are related to answers to the six resentment questions, but ever so C.01) LOl) LOl) slightly: the Pearson correlation between the scale of racial resentment and Constant .48 SO .50 LOl) opinions on blacks' inborn inferiority is just .12. Biological inferiority no longer C.01) __ C.01) R-squared .1 1 .05 .l 1 appears to be the centerpiece of American racial thinking.61 Standard error .12 .I 1 .12 Number of cases 1,797 1,780 1,782 RACIAL RESENTMENT AND PUBLIC POLICY Source: 1992 National Election Study. Note:Table entry is B, the unstandardized ordinary least squares regression coefficient, with standard All this evidence suggests that we have in hand a reliable and valid measure errors in parentheses underneath. of racial resentment, one well suited to modern-day American race relations. 116 / PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES 1117 Table 5.5 Impact of Racial Resentment on White Americans' Opinions on Race Policy But our interest lies less in racial resentment for its own sake, and more in how it is played out in public life. Here it is our purpose to determine the effect of 1986 1988 1992 racial resentment on the views white Americans take on a wide variety of social Policy (1) (2) (3) (4) 6) (6) policies. Fair employment .57 .57 .51 .63 .63 .51 School desegregation .3p .28 .18 .40 .17 To estimate this effect, we must first place racial resentment in a larger theo- Federal spending .45 .44 .36 .41 .59 .73 retical framework. The evidence we have just presented is reassuring on the Government effort .44 .44 .37 .53 .51 .59 quality of our measures, but does nothing to relieve us of the obligation to take Preferential hiring .40 .40 .38 .42 .47 .41 into account alternative interoretations of public opinion on matters of race. It College quotas .60 .61 .59 .63 .71 .60 would be foolish to assume that whites' views on, say, affirmative action are Source: 1986, 1988, 1992 National Election Studies. No&Table entry is B, the unstandardized regression coefficient representing the effect of racial resent- only expressions of racial resentment. To generate estimates of the political ef- ment (coded O-l) on whites'views on race policy (also coded O-l ). All coefficients are statistically sig fect of racial resentment that anyone should take seriously, we must at the same nificant. The standard errors range from .05 to .lO. Estimates provided by ordinary least squares regres- sion, except in column 6, which are provided by two-stage least squares. time take into account the effects due to other plausible considerations. These inciude, most notabiy, whatever threats to materiai interests that appear to be at stake, general opposition to government intervention in private affairs, com- Consider, as a typical example, the question of whether the federal gov- mitment to the abstract American ideal of individualism, and principled reser- ernment should provide special assistance to black Americans. According to vations about the application of equality to society. table 5.5, the regression estimate of the effect of racial resentment on this ques- Mindful of this obligation, we will estimate the impact of racial resentment tion of policy is .44. This means that two white Americans, identical in social in several rounds of analysis. Each round represents a distinct, but plausible, background and political outlook, who differ only in that one is racially sym- specification. We rely first of all on data provided by the 1986 NES, but move pathetic (scoring 0 on the racial resentment scale) while the other is racially beyond it when we can. We begin with simple specifications, adding com- resentful (a score of l.O), will differ from each other on the question of federal plexity as we proceed. assistance by a value of .44. When we consider that the effects due to other considerations are taken into account, and that the policy scale itself ranges Racial Resentment and Race Policy from 0, meaning that the government has a special obligation to blacks, to 1, Our immediate purpose is to estimate the impact of racial resentment where meaning that blacks should get ahead on their own without the help of govern- it is likely to be most pronounced: on policies that deal explicitly and unam- ment, a difference of .44 is large. biguously with race. On matters of school desegregation and affirmative action, Indeed, column 1 of table 5.5 presents nothing but sizable coefficients. The black Americans are the intended primary beneficiaries, and all our questions effect of racial resentment is greatest on the question of quotas in college ad- name them as such. If racial resentment is to come into play in public opinion missions and smallest-though still appreciable-on the question of school at all, it should show up most plainly here. desegregation. These results imply that white Americans' objections to poli- In this first analysis, we also take into account, in addition to racial resent- cies intended to diminish racial inequalities are expressions, in large part, of ment, the effects due to material threats to self-interest, opposition to the in- racial resentment. trusions of government in private affairs, a wide array of social background Racial Resentment and General Individualism characteristics (age, region, gender, Hispanic ethnicity, family income, educa- tion, occupational status), as well as race of interviewer.6z What happens to our results, and to the conclusion they imply, when we Column 1 of table 5.5 presents the results. The rows of the table correspond take abstract individualism into account? To find out, we simply added a mea- to each of the six race policies included in the 1986 NES. fie estimated effect of sure of individualism into our first round regression analysis. For the purpose racial resentment is provided in each case by ordinary least squares regression. of this analysis, the six individualism questions included in the 1986 NES are Keeping in mind that the policy questions, like the racial resentment scale, are ideal: the questions are abstract, they make no specific reference to blacks or coded on the O-l interval, the coefficients on display in column 1 of table 5.5 whites, and they concentrate for the most part on the virtue of self-reliance indicate a very substantial effect of racial resentment on white opinion. and the power of individual initiative (e.g., "Most people who don't get ahead 118 PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES I119 should not blame the system; they have only themselves to blame"). Individual- porates elements that are uncomfortably close to what we are trying to explain, ism, measured in this way, will play a prominent role in the next chapter, as namely, public policy on race. In short, the 1988 and 1992 NES studies may part of our more general argument that public opinion is shaped by Ameri- provide us with more than precisely calibrated replications; they may actually can principles. Our purpose here is limited to establishing whether the ef- provide the better test of the power of racial resentment. fect of racial resentment diminishes when we also take into account general The results from 1988 and 1992 are presented in columns 4 and 5 of individualism.63 table 5.5, and they are striking. The powerful effects of racial resentment first Adding individualism changes nothing. For each of the six race policies, the detected in 1986 are even more powerful in 1988 and in 1992. These findings, tely Ludtered. This can be seen based on a snarpened measure of racidl rese~li~rlertt, sire~lgilrerl our urigirldl by comparing the string of coefficients in column 1 of table 5.5 with the corre- conclusion. White opposition to policies that would provide opportunity and sponding string of coefficients in column 2. The two are indistinguishable. The assistance to blacks is primarily an expression of racial resentment.66 effect of racial resentment is completely unaffected by the presence of individu- alism. In the meantime, the estimated effect of individualism itself in these six ,,,+-,,*,,A RelclILII1cniL alzu Lrr..ml:+., Lyuallly cases is essentially zero." We will have more to say about individualism in So far we have found powerful effects of racial resentment on white opinion Chapter 6, but this is what we can say now: white opposition to racial change toward various aspects of racial policy. But this evidence is not fully convincing, appears to be motivated not by commitment to individualism in general, but by because we have not yet taken into account the real possibility that white opin- resentment directed against blacks in particular.65 ion on racial matters is derived at least in part from beliefs about equality. In the next chapter, we develop the argument that American public opinion has a Racial Resentment and Race Policy in Different Settings foundation in principles, and in claims about equality in particular. As we will That our estimate of the impact of racial resentment is unaffected by indi- see there, much scholarship on the American political tradition takes as a cen- vidualism is both important and convenient, for it allows us to replicate our tral point what Tocqueville referred to as the American "passion for equality." analysis in NES studies that do not include measures of individualism. Thus we The implication of this line of analysis is to suggest that opinion on matters of can see whether the effects of resentment so dramatically on display in 1986 race might well turn on the extent to which Americans subscribe to doctrines also show up under a variety of circumstances, free of the worry that our esti- of equality. And this point takes on immediate relevance here when we recog- mate is biased because of the omission of individualism. nize that racial resentments and beliefs about equality are likely to be corre- In particular we can repeat our analysis twice, making use of the 1988 and lated. It should not surprise us to discover that racially sympathetic whites are 1992 NES presidential election studies. The 1988 NES carried all but one of the inclined to embrace egalitarian principles, while racially resentful whites tend six race policy questions that have been the center of our attention so far; the to express reservations about equality. And this means we need to take views 1992 NES carried them all. Both studies also included virtua!!y the same array on equality into account here, as -we try to ascertain the political effect of racial of social background characteristics that we made use of in our analysis of the resentment. 1986 NES, and both included a measure of limited government. Most impor- One way to do this is simple and straightforward. To our first round of tant, both studies carried four of the original six questions that made up the analysis, we just add a measure of principled reservations about the application 1986 NES racial resentment scale-the first four questions, as they appear on of equality to American society. This measure is based on an averaged response page 106. The resulting resentment scale is briefer and slightly less reliable in to six equally weighted questions that primarily concern the desirability of each case than the 1986 version, but in some ways it may be better. The two equality of opportunity, pitched at an abstract level (e.g., "Our society should questions that were set aside in the 1988 and 1992 studies are those least justi- do whatever is necessary to make sure that everyone has an equal opportunity fiable as measures of prejudice (on the interpretation that prejudical beliefs are to succeed").67 erroneous). Moreover, uniquely among the original set of six, the two explicitly Bringing in equality in this way diminishes the effect of racial resentment. invoke government, referring to "welfare" in one case and "government offi- These results, which are taken from the 1986 NES, are presented in column 3 of cials" in the other. This means that the 1986 NES racial resentment scale incor- table 5.5. They show that in the presence of equality, the estimated direct effect SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES I 121 120 I PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION of racial resentment is somewhat reduced. The reduction is appreciable in just Resentment and Opinion beyond the Racial Domain one case, however, on school integration, where the direct effect of resentment Finally we wondered about the impact of racial resentment on issues that diminishes by about 40%. In all other cases, the impact of racial resentment lie outside the domain of race. To inform this analysis, we made use of the cate- declines either modestly or not at all. Thus under stringent statistical controls, gories introduced in Chapter,2 and the rich set of policy questions included in racial resentment remains a powerful force in white opinion. the 1992 NES. We distinguished among explicit racial issues, where, as we have Indeed, the impact of racial resentment is probably stronger than it appears just seen, the impact of racial resentment is substantial; implicit racial issues, in these last results. As we said, this first way of bringing equality into the which make no mention of blacks and whites but that may be widelv under- analysis is srra~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ stood to have a racial implication (e.g., federal support for Food Stamps); broad- direct effect of racial resentment declines in the presence of equality does not based social programs (e.g., government spending on Social Security); morai necessarily mean that the we should readjust downward our assessment of its issues raised by the religious right (e.g., parental consent for abortion); new political potency. This is so because beliefs about equality may be in large part issues arising out of surges in immigration (e.g., restricting the flow of immi- a product of racial animosity. Views about equality of opportunity in general cm~ntrvi~ zanrl FingQ, p&ters of f nr&on I?-- rap.& ipet0 t& _y -_ .._, , , -_ .-, -1 _-_- o-' nnlicy (e.g., 1J.S. r&- is are, perhaps, reflections of sentiments toward the social groups that have been tions with what used to be the Soviet Union). Heading into this analysis, we at the center of particular and conspicuous struggles over equality. Put more expected that the impact of racial resentment would be most pronounced in strongly than we actually believe, when white Americans are asked to turn policy disputes where the racial dimension is explicit and out in the open, sub- their minds to equality in the abstract, they are really turning their minds to stantially smaller but still visible on implicit race policy, and essentially dis- equalities in the concrete, and especially to racial disputes over equality in par- appear thereafter, as issues of public contention become farther and farther re- ticular. By not taking this indirect effect of racial resentment into account, our moved from American race relations. first results on equality may lead us to underestimate its real (or total) effect. The results are displayed in table 5.6, organized by category, from explicit It is cf course possible to turn this argument around, to claim that resent- racial policy at the top to foreign policy at the bottom. Each entry in the table is ment toward blacks is a product of general egalitarian sentiments. Should this the unstandardized version of the ordinary least squares regression coefficient, be true, then the strong direct effects of racial resentment displayed in col- giving the effect of racial resentment on white opinion on each of the various umn 3 of table 5.5 provide a good reading of its real power. policies. In all cases, the estimated effect of racial resentment is over and above The general difficulty here of settling by assumption the relationship be- the effects due to limited government, social background, race of interviewer, tween equality and racial resentment suggests an additional analysis. In this and (most important) equal opportunity. If anything, then, the effects presented specification, we estimate the impact of racial resentment and equality on white in table 5.6 may underestimate the actual impact of racial resentment.69 opinion toward racial policy. As we do so, racial resentment is assumed to be Results generally conform to expectations: the effects of racial resentment a cause of equality, and, simultaneously, equality is assumed to be a cause of are huge at the top and small at the bottom, as the issue domain proceeds from racial resentment. The practical obstacles that stand in the way of estimating race to foreign relations. But the table contains some surprises as well. One is these effects can be surmounted by taking advantage of the 1990-92 NES panel the strong effect of racial resentment on issues where race is present only by design, which includes measures of resentment and equality on both inter- assumption. Racially resentful whites are a good bit less er.thusiastic about in- views, along with the standard set of race policy questions in 1992.68 creasing federal support for the Food Stamps program, for example, and they The results are shown in the last column of table 5.5. They tell a by now are a good bit more enthusiastic about capital punishment for convicted mur- familiar story, that of the political power of racial resentment. They suggest that derers. And so it goes for welfare, urban unrest, and sanctions against South previously we may have exaggerated a bit the power of racial resentment on Africa: even when policies are described in ways that make no mention of race, matters of school desegregation and fair employment (where views on equality racial resentment plays a prominent role. These results suggest how far race has turn out to be very important), and at the same time, underestimated the power infiltrated discussions of American policy. of resentment on issues of federal responsibility. But everywhere, our results Far, but not all the way. Much as we had expected, the effect of racial re- say, racial resentment is important. Table 5.6 Effect of Racial Resentment on White Public Opinion Integrated Schools Fair Employment Government Assistance Federal Spending Preferential iiring College Quotas .37 .67 .47 .49 .43 .68 03 (.W f.03) C.04) C.04) C.04) Food Stamps Welfare Remedies for Urban Unrest Sanctions against South Africaa Capital Punishment - .27 .22 .23 .46 .33 C.04) (.04) f.04) (.lO) C.04) Homeless Medicare Family Leave Social Security Education Childcare Poor -__ .05 -.08 .I8 -.16 -.05 .12 .lO C.03) C.03) C.05) (.04) (.03) C.04) (.04) Abortion Sexual Harassment Gay R :hts Prayer in Women's Parental Government Spousal Serious Requires Protect against Ga sin Gays adopt School School right consent subsidy notification problem legislation job discrim. mil :ary children choice - - -- - - - .07 -.05 .26 .I5 .19 .11 .14 .21 ii- .24 .I2 C.03) (.04) C.04) (.05) LO@ LOS) (.05) (.'.I'3 (:i 6) C.05) C.08) Restricting Immigration Withholding Benefits from Immigrants Eng sh Official Language .21 .22 .26 t.031 LW (.06) Compete with Soviet Union Keep out of Central America Defense Spending .29 .14 .lO LO6) (.05) C.03) Source: 1986 and 1992 National Election Studies. Note:Table entry is B, the unstandardized form of the ordinary least squares coefficient, with standard error in parentheses underneath. ach regression equation included measures of limited government, equal opportunity, social background, and race of interviewer. t - 124 1 PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES I125 is perhaps no surprise to see another.'O What is surprising, however, is that the legislation that would protect gays from employment discrimination and are connection is so visible in our results, even though current immigration comes comparatively unenthusiastic about federal efforts to cope with the AIDS epi- predominantly from Central and South America and the Pacific rim, while our demic. They favor the death penalty. They tend to oppose increases in federal measure of "nativism" is directed exclusively at black Americans. money for Food Stamps. They would like to see government services denied to Last of all, and a final surprise, the impact of racial resentment is also de- immigrants. tectable in the domain of foreign relations. As the bottom row of table 5.6 re- We should hasten to say that not everyone who resents blacks fears homo- veals, racially resentful whites seem to be generally more apprehensive over sexuals, and not everyone who supports a strong defense believes that blacks foreign threats: more inclined to favor increases in defense spending, more -gotten ahead unfairly~ We have uncovered tendencies and inclinations, likely to advocate a tough posture toward the Soviet Union, and more likely that is all. Still, the tendencies and inclinations are surprisingly strong, and most to support U.S. involvement in Centrai America. The effects are not gigantic, especially, they reach surprisingly far. We began with resentment toward blacks but they are far from zero. They suggest, once again, that resentment toward in particular, but here we are at the end with something rather different-with, blacks is part of a broader system of beliefs and feelings about social difference evidently, apprehensions and fears set off by a variety of social differences. in generalP71 In this -way, our findings recali those reported by Adomo and his colieagues nearly fifty years ago in The Authoritarian Pevsonalify. Adomo's team found that CONCLUSIONS the fear and contempt that some Americans felt for Jews were often accompa- The origins of race prejudice in America are tangled and distant. They re- nied by comparable sentiments directed at other "alien elements": criminals, cede far into our shared past, rooted most plainly in the experience of slavery. Japanese-Americans, conscientious objectors, immigrants, blacks, foreign ideas, Closer to our own time, the public form and private meaning of prejudice have and more. Our results suggest a similar ethnocentric pattern to American undergone two important alterations, one reflected in the decline of the doc- opinion today. The resemblances between our conception of racial resentment trine of biological racism, the other provoked by the sweeping changes and and the point of view put forward in The Authoritarian Personality are suffi- turbulent events that made up the racial crisis of the 1960s. As a consequence of ciently striking, and the differences sufficiently important, to warrant further these developments, animosity toward blacks is expressed today less in the lan- discussion. We will return to the relationships between racial resentment, preju- guage of inherent, permanent. biological difference, and more in the language dice, and ethnocentrism in our final chapter. of American individualism, which depicts blacks as unwilling to try and too For now we want to emphasize the contrast between our results, which willing to take what they have not earned. reveal racial resentment to be the most potent force in white public opinion Defined this way, racial resentment plays an important and expansive role on race today, and most contemporary scholarship on white racial attitudes, in white public opinion. On equal opportunity in employment, school deseg- which tends to be impressed by the transformation in race relations that has regation, federal assistance, affirmative action at work, and quotas in college taken place in the United States in the latter half of the twentieth century and admissions, racially resentful whites line up on one side of the issue, and optimistic about the future. In much of this work, America is portrayed as racially sympathetic whites line up on the other. Racial resentment is not the moving inexorably toward a racially integrated and egalitarian society. There only thing that matters for race policy, but by a fair margin racial resentment is the are authoritative references to "revolutionary changes in ancient beliefs about most imporfant. This result comes shining through, across various specifications, Negroes," n and to the "steady, massive growth in racial tolerance." 74There is under different political circumstances, and with close attention to alternative the confident inference that "white Americans have shown in many ways that considerations.R they do not want a racist government and that they will not follow racist Such results would be enough to establish the political significance of racial leaders."" The most recent report from the General Social Survey's monitoring resentment in contemporary American society, but we found more. We found of white racial attitudes begins with the characteristically sunny announcement that racially resentful whites also tend to push for a strong national defense and that "despite widespread and vocal concerns about a resurgence of racism and a tough stance toward the Soviet Union (back when there was a Soviet Union), the decline of support for civil rights during the 198Os, public support for racial to favor limits on foreign imports to save American jobs, and to oppose sanc- equality continued to grow throughout the decade and, in 1990, support on tions against South Africa. On the home front, racially resentful whites oppose many measures was at or near all time highs."76 126 PRIMARY INGREDIENTS OF OPINION SUBTLE PREJUDICE FOR MODERN TIMES 1 127 Not to worry is the main message here. Prejudice is a problem, but a small of it appears to be.80 Certainly it differs conspicuously from the flagrant racism and shrinking one; more impressive is the massive improvement in white atti- of late nineteenth-century Social Darwinism. But Degler's thick and learned tudes. Reynolds Farley, in the conclusion to his superior review of the evidence volume devotes only a dismissive footnote to the work of Arthur Jensen, the on differences between blacks and whites in economic and social standing, ex- well-known Berkeley educational psychologist who has argued that racial dif- presses this point of view superbly: ferences in performance on intelligence tests should be understood in genetic terms. Whites have confronted the American dilemma described by Gun- And Degler's book was published too soon to take account of the ostenta- nar Myrdal and have accepted the principles that all should be allowed to vote and that blacks and W~&ZX&UU have equal on- tious arrival of The Bell Curve, in which Hermstein and Charles Murray imply, portunities for jobs and education. To be sure, racism is not dead. again and again, that racial differences in achievement and social standing are A small number of whites are still active in the Ku Klux Klan, biologically based; and that in ihe face of this genetic imperative, social reform crosses are still burned on the lawns of some blacks who dare and government intervention are powerless. 81 Newsweek called The Bell Curve to move into white neighborhoods, and proposals to build low- "frightening stuff," which it is, and worried that it "plays to public anxieties income housing or to integrate pllb!ic schools sti!! -meet heated op- -. __mime '-~-p"~~~'--,, ------ d~pen&nce,andracialfrictioni" which it does. nvor -----.-, illeaitimwv wplfxrp -.- position. But no more than a small minority of whites would prefer At the National Review, meanwhile, contributors to a symposium welcomed it to overturn the civil rights laws of the 1960s and go back to a legally as "magisterial," noting that it "confirms ordinary citizens' reasonable intuition segregated society.n that trying to engineer racial equality in the distribution of occupations and This is not so much wrong as it is incomplete. Real progress has taken place. social positions runs against not racist prejudice but nature, which shows no As a rule, white Americans now reject the idea that blacks originate from an such egalitarian distribution of talents." It is simply too early to tell whether or inferior race, and they accept equal opportunity and racial integration as mat- not Jensen and then Hermstein and Murray represent the leading edge of what ters of principle. These are genuine accomplishments-but there is more to be will turn into an outpouring of research, once again altering the mix of ideas said, and more to worry over. about race circulating through American society. We may not have seen the last For one thing, we see no reason why biological racism might not return. In of biological racism. a scathing commentary on A Comvzon Destiny, the National Academy of Sci- Even if we have seen the last of biological racism, we surely have not seen ences report on the condition of black Americans and the state of race relations the last of racial resentment. It may be comforting to equate prejudice with the today, the Harvard psychologist R. J. Herrnstein complained of the report's un- doctrine of white supremacy and to imagine racists parading around in white willingness to confront the possibility that racial differences in socioeconomic sheets. Defined this way, prejudice is now confined primarily to the backwaters achievement or intellectual performance might be due to "differing average en- of white society and very well may be on the way out altogether. But the decline dowments of people in the two races."78 Hermstein argued that restrictions on of blatant racial bigotry should not be equated with the disappearance of racial public discourse and scientific investigation on matters of racial difference are resentment. There is still plenty of that around, expressed in assumptions about I black character. Informed by the individualistic virtues of hard work and self- both pervasive and powerful. In Hermstein's view, to mention genetic expla- nations is "taboo in polite company"; 'I open discussion of the [genetic] model reliance, racial resentment remains a very popular and exceedingly potent force is our obscenity, much as public discussion of sexuality was the Victorian in white opinion. More than 130 years after emancipation, on the eve of a new obscenity."79 century, views on politics and society are still powerfully shaped by the black Hermstein has a point, even if he carries it too far. Liberal environmentalism image in the white mind. did take over the social sciences, and no doubt did discourage the consideration I of biological explanations for racial differences. But liberal knvironmentalism -! now seems to be in retreat. Biological and evolutionary models have made a considerable splash in recent years throughout the social sciences. Carl Degler argues that this revival of biological thought is politically innocent-and much i I
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I'm a fairly shy person, but it doesn't take me long to open up. I'm an easy-going (cliché I know!), friendly person.
I love animals. I will no doubt be a crazy cat man when living arrangements permit.
I love to travel, and have seen a few places. There are still so many new places I want to visit (and quite a few I want to go back to).

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