Ygz is glad to see that polls show African Americans’ views of the state of race relations hving improved dramatically in recent months, but surprised to see that fully 44 percent of black respondents believed that blacks and whites now enjoy equal opportunity in the United States—despite ample evidence that, presidential elections notwithstanding, this is not yet the case.
Insofar as many of the differences in opportunity Yglesias points up have to do with “starting endowments,” it’s possible that respondents are just implicitly controlling for these by taking the question as making a pairwise comparison: Does a random black person starting from a particular social and economic position have as good a chance as a random white person similarly situated? Whether this is the “right” way to answer the question depends on what you’re getting at, but I’d expect that priming respondents with a question about current race relations (as opposed to, say, a question about whether historical injustices have been rectified) invites this frame.
Even so, do people genuinely believe that the playing field is otherwise perfectly equal? That subconscious stereotyping doesn’t lead to disparate treatment in hundreds of subtle ways, even where overt racism is disavowed? Maybe not, but it is possible that we’re hitting the point of diminishing returns for the awareness of inequity. There’s scads of psychological literature establishing that, in essence, the only people with an accurate estimate of their talent and popularity are incurable pessimists. Or, put another way, we’re all naturally prone to “unrealistic optimism” and, so long as it doesn’t cross over into outright delusion, this is good for us: Overestimating (within limits) how likely you are to succeed at something actually makes you more likely to succeed at it.
That leads to an obvious tradeoff when it comes to unequal opportunity: Holding social circumstances constant, acting on the background assumption that you have a fair chance at success probably helps you succeed. (How much enthusiasm could I summon for sending around pitches if I thought many editors would glance at my name and delete them unread? How would the pitches written in that mind-set read?) Of course, the same background assumption also makes you less disposed to civic or political action aimed at correcting whatever disparity exists—but our beliefs and actions shape our own lives centrally, whereas most of us make at most marginal contributions to social and political change. When the disparities are huge and amenable to direct political remedy—no more segregated schools; no more “need not apply” want ads—the balance of considerations would be a no-brainer even if the disparity weren’t so flagrant as to make denial pretty much impossible. But when your group’s chances are, let’s say, decent without yet being equal, and when a major source of remaining inequality is the sort of subliminal attitude for which there’s no quick legislative solution, you might very well be better off proceeding on the belief that opportunities were equal, even though they’re not.
This wouldn’t have to be some kind of calculated self-deception. We know that people tend to imitate and adopt the ideas and behaviors of visibly successful people. So if the more successful members of a community tend to be those who (mistakenly) believe that chances are equal, or who at least act as though they believe this, then that attitude is likely to spread. Of course, that’s a long term effect, and probably not a good account of month-to-month or even year-to-year polling trends.
Update: Ta-Nehisi Coates seems to have more or less the same take, and he’s presumably in a better position to know.
4 responses so far ↓
1 sidereal // Apr 28, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Unless there is a sufficient surfeit of visibly successful people in one’s social or identity group that emulating the behaviors of the successful requires emulating the behaviors of those outside the group, and thus encountering suspicion and accusations of betrayal. The story of improving race relations in this country is the story of the slow evolution of a population of successful (and universally regarded as such) African Americans, first through music, then sports, now hopefully politics, that provide model behaviors that can be emulated without suffering accusations of selling out.
2 Julian Sanchez // Apr 28, 2009 at 4:52 pm
I’m pretty sure that you mean the opposite of “surfeit” in the first sentence above.
But this is actually an interesting point. The obvious reason Obama might move the poll data is people look at the result and say: “Wow, lots of white people voted for a black president. Maybe there really has been a dramatic decline in prejudice, and the deck is less stacked against black folks than it previously appeared.”
The slightly less obvious mechanism is that Obama suddenly becomes the most visible black role model. And however much low-grade bias might adversely affect the job prospects of most ordinary African Americans, it seems like it’s probably pretty hard to simultaneously entertain the thoughts: “I can aspire to be president one day too!” and “White America is systematically hostile to me.”
3 sidereal // Apr 28, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Whoops! Yes. Classic surfeit/dearth substitution. Okay, maybe only classic for me.
Another component of Obama as role model is that he’s unambiguously in charge. Even within domains in which African Americans have traditionally found successful role models there can be a lingering suspicion that, say, black athletes are still discriminated against or have to work harder for respect compared to their white peers (black quarterbacks having to be ‘mobile’, etc). Obama has no white peers, so it’s hard to find any foundation for a grievance.
4 LP // Apr 28, 2009 at 8:08 pm
“So if the more successful members of a community tend to be those who (mistakenly) believe that chances are equal, or who at least act as though they believe this, then that attitude is likely to spread.”
And, not just among the members of the less-than-equal group. Related to your point about correcting disparities vs. living your own life, acting as though there *is* no disparity is an excellent means of causing embarrassment for those ‘subliminal discriminators’ who seem to expect that the discriminated-against party should just get the picture and go home quietly. On any given feminist blog, this debate seems to resurface every couple of years, focused on whether women should deal with sexual harassment/discrimination by overt resistance (reporting, taking legal action, fighting the good fight) or by simply refusing to conspire in the subtle cultural messaging that women still require special protection and help to achieve parity. Sometimes merely enacting the role of a perfectly equal human being is very disturbing to the subconsciously biased mind, producing embarrassment and discomfort, which I say is an important element of social change.