racism that can ultimately be more harmful than overt forms of racism (Wong & Schwing, 2014). It can be a part of individual, institutional, or cultural racism. These subtle acts allow people who engage in them to see themselves as fair. Aversive racism explains how individuals who openly endorse color-blind ideologies simultaneously hold deeply ingrained racial biases (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000). It has been well documented that employers often have a specific aversion to hiring Black males, especially in service jobs where most customers are White (Holzer, 2007). Employers may be less willing to hire a Black man with an ethnic-sounding name. This aversion is worst when employers suspect that a potential employee may have a criminal record, simply based on a name (Holzer, 2007). Zero-tolerance school-discipline policies yield racially biased results especially when violations fall under loosely defined categories such as being disrespectful, disorderly conduct, and mischief (Edelman, 2007). As another example, the theory of aversive racism assumes when evaluation criteria are unclear or ambiguous, people will typically treat African Americans with a negative bias (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000). For example, Dovidio and Gaertner (2000) found in situations where Whites are evaluating job applicants via unclear evaluation criteria, qualified African American job applicants are rated poorly compared to similar White applicants. But when the evaluation criteria are clear and just, Black candidates are rated similarly to Whites. Police stop-and-frisk rules are notoriously ambiguous, and therefore, allow police to fall back on their racial biases when deciding who to apprehend. For example, when stop-and-frisk laws allow police to stop someone based on subjective criteria like suspicious behaviors or emotional state, aversive racism explains the likelihood that racist assumptions will drive police actions.
Slightly different from Jones (1991a), Karenga (2010a) explains that racism is, in part, expressed as a pseudointellectual ideology of negative assumptions about people of color that reinforce and justify institutional arrangements, ensuring White power and privilege. A kind of ideology, symbolic racism is found in beliefs such as the idea that Blacks have not obtained successes because of their failure to work hard, and that racism is no longer a social barrier (Belgrave & Allison, 2006). Beliefs like these are symbolic and representative of the presence of racist ideologies that guide and justify racist actions. Symbolic racism is tied to the notion of post-racialism, the belief that racial discrimination is of little or no contemporary significance in an increasingly diverse society. However, it is frequently contradicted by repeated and consistent cases of racism and White supremacy at nearly all levels of social structures, from racism in criminal justice to racism in healthcare. Because of this, post-racialism is often critiqued as an illusion permitting people to overlook the significance of current and past racism, and avert otherwise apparent needs to address racial inequities.
In an example of the role of ideological perception in racism, Goff, Jackson, Di Leone, Culotta, and Ditomasso (2014) conducted a study examining the extent to which Black boys are perceived as children compared to other boys. They found that Black boys were perceived as older and less innocent compared to their White same-age peers. The authors explain that this finding points to a general dehumanization of Black males. According to Goff et al. (2014), some of the disparities that Black people face are the result of being perceived in ways that deny their full humanness. Prejudice is the product of attitudes and beliefs. Dehumanization involves moral exclusion and a denial of basic human protections. For example, prejudice (and pursuit of power) may lead to institutional racism such as a Black person being denied a job because of race. Dehumanization leads to acts of extreme violence or genocide against an individual or group (Goff et al., 2014).
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Characteristics associated with Black boys and distinguishing them from adults are their innocence, vulnerability, and the need for protection. When Black boys are dehumanized, they are afforded fewer protections and are more vulnerable to harsh treatment. For this reason, Black boys are seen as more deserving of adult treatment (Goff et al., 2014). The moral exclusion that comes along with dehumanization makes it acceptable to treat dehumanized people in ways that would otherwise be morally objectionable. For example, the above authors found that the dehumanization of Blacks predicted racial disparities in the use of force against Black boys relative to children of other races. The more that police officers reported perceiving Black boys as less human, the more likely they were to have used force against Black boys relative to White children.
How Racism has Changed from the Past to the Present
Contemporary racism is subtler than it was in the present (White & Cones, 1999). There are rarely instances of Ku Klux Klan lynch mobs, hangings, and segregated schools. There some Blacks in professional and managerial positions. There are Black mayors and congresspersons and there has been a Black president. This is, in part, because the Civil Rights Movement reduced the level of up-front or blatant forms of racism. However, racism remains a powerful and enduring presence today. Racism’s change in appearance can be deceiving “like the tip of an iceberg which hides the destructive force below” (White & Cones, 1999, p. 80). In fact, in 2012, when Barack Obama won the presidency for the second time, an Associated Press poll found that more Whites (Democrats 51% and Republicans 56%) harbored overt and covert anti-Black attitudes than they did in 2008 (48% and 49%, respectively) (Junius, 2012). In 2016, 61% of Americans (82% of Blacks, 66% of Hispanics, and 52% of Whites) believed that racism against Blacks was widespread (Jones, 2016). Moreover, as Obama left office, African Americans remained behind Whites on all social indicators including measures of health, wealth, education, and physical longevity (Reid, 2016). Racism as a social phenomenon has remained remarkably persistent.
Laissez-faire racism is a theory that explains the evolution of racial attitudes toward African Americans and the persistence of racial inequality. In the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racism was at its height. African Americans lived mostly in rural southern areas doing agricultural work. During this period, racial discrimination was formally accepted. Most White Americans were comfortable with the notion of Black inferiority, and scientific explanations of Black people’s inherent biogenetic inferiority were common. However, in the post-World War II era, Jim Crow social structures diminished due to Black political agency and changes in the position and power of Black people; the Black population became more socioeconomically diverse and urbanized. Moreover, overt racism became more socially unacceptable, and the country adopted more officially race-neutral policies. Bobo (1999) asserts that this change did not result in an anti-racist society that embraces a popular ideology of egalitarianism, and equal worth and treatment of Black people. Instead, racial inequality is now popularly accepted under the ideology of laissez-faire racism: (1) the persistent negative stereotyping of African Americans; (2) the tendency to blame African American people for their position in the current condition of socioeconomic racial inequality, and; (3) resistance to meaningful policy efforts aimed at resolving racist social conditions because such efforts pose a threat to collective White privilege. According to Bobo, laissez-faire racism has emerged as the popular racial belief system during a time when cultural trends reject notions of biological racism and policies are formally race-neutral and committed to anti-discrimination.
In spite of this outward rejection of racism, race-based inequity persists and has worsened in some respects (Bobo, 1999). As the sociocultural climate has changed, and overt Jim Crow racism is no longer essential to maintaining White privilege, laissez-faire racism defends racial inequality in a socially acceptable manner, thus protecting White privilege. However, Bobo’s (1999) theory does not address ←36 | 37→the role that culture plays in the transformation of racism. Africana people now have greater exposure to White definitional systems relative to the past when, due to segregation, they were more isolated from the Euro-American educational system and other forms of indoctrination (Kambon, 2006). This results in Black people being exposed to a higher level of cultural racism. Bobo’s (1999) theory also doesn’t address how non-Whites who are also not Black benefit from anti-Black racism.
How Black Men Experience Race Differently
Some Black people may experience
