“I Am Not a Racist But...”: Mapping White College Students' Racial Ideology in the USA

TLDR

Survey-based research has traditionally framed White racial attitudes in the USA as either tolerant or ambivalent, yet the civil rights movement of the 1960s introduced a new color‑blind racism ideology with new topics and forms. The study argues that existing surveys systematically underestimate White prejudice in the U.S. population. The authors examined these issues by collecting survey and interview data from college students at three universities.

Abstract

Survey-based research on Whites' racial attitudes in the USA has characterized their views as either `tolerant' or `ambivalent'. We argue that surveys on racial attitudes have systematically underestimated the extent of prejudice in the White population. The legal and normative changes created by the civil rights movement of the 1960s brought a new racial ideology (`color blind racism'), with new topics and a new form. These matters were examined by collecting survey and interview data from college students in three universities. The main findings were that White respondents appear to be more prejudiced in the interviews than in the survey, use a new racetalk to avoid appearing `racist', and that the themes and arguments that they mobilize are congruent with what other analysts have labeled as `laissez faire' or `competitive' racism.