Anything but Race: Avoiding Racial Discourse to Avoid Hurting You or Me

Abstract

The present research examines how Whites employ strategic colorblindness-the strategic assertion that race should not and/or does not matter-in interracial interactions, and how stereotype threat and concern about non-Whites influence the use of this conversational technique. Because colorblindness can be egalitarian or anti-egalitarian (Knowles, Lowery, Hogan, & Chow, 2009), one must define colorblindness in order to understand how it is employed. Two studies provide evidence that both concerns that racial categorization harms non-Whites and concerns with appearing racist affects the use of strategic colorblindness. Study 1 uses field observations to explore the content of spontaneous colorblind statements and their relationship to stereotype threat. Study 2 manipulates stereotype threat and concerns for non-Whites, revealing that each independently increases Whites' endorsement of strategic colorblindness relative to control conditions. This research highlights the importance of both studying interracial interactions in field settings and considering how definitions of diversity shape intergroup contexts.

I Don't See Race (or Conflict): Strategic Descriptions of Ambiguous Negative Intergroup Contexts

“…In the current experiments, we were interested in testing racial color blindness by comparing the use of racial labels when an interaction was interracial, and thus race was salient, to when race was assumed to not be salient for non‐Black participants, for example when the ACT depicted two White actors (Hegarty, ; Zarate & Sanders, ; Zarate & Eliot, ). It is important, however, to explore whether non‐Black participants do not mention race in a same‐race context with two Black actors and if not, whether the reason for avoiding race is because race is not salient, because they believe that using race is unfair to Blacks (Goff et al., ), or because they are trying to create the appearance that minorities do not differ from the White majority and that they are not prejudiced (Neville et al., ). It would also be important to investigate and compare how Black participants would respond to an intergroup interaction compared to two White actors interacting and two Black actors interacting.…”

“…Indeed, research suggests that inducing concerns about being prejudiced can motivate greater endorsement of racial color blindness. For example, in an experiment by Goff, Jackson, Nicholas, and Di Leone (), participants completed a measure of racial prejudice, then were randomly assigned to receive false feedback that they were either high or low in negative attitudes toward Blacks. Results revealed that participants who were given high prejudice feedback scored higher on a subsequent strategic racial color blindness scale than those who were given low prejudiced feedback.…”

“…Second, in real‐world situations, claims like “I don't see race” often occur in response to circumstances marked by intergroup conflict or disagreement (Scotti, ). Because the use of racial color blindness allows people to believe that they have reduced the chance that others will perceive them as racist (Apfelbaum et al., ; Goff et al., ; Neville et al., ; Somers et al., ), such strategies may be particularly common in contentious situations. However, strategic racial color blindness has typically been studied in neutral or positive contexts, such as the Guess Who game.…”

“…Moreover, a large literature demonstrates that in more ambiguous contexts, racial biases thrive (Devine, 1989;Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986;Son Hing, Chung-Yan, Hamilton, & Zanna, 2008). For example, when qualifications by minority group members are ambiguous or when behavior is not clearly positive or negative, Blacks may be evaluated more negatively.…”

“…When applicants had mixed credentials (e.g., strong high school grades but modest standardized scores), Black compared to White students were rated lower. According to aversive racism theory (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2004;Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986), one reason bias may occur in ambiguous situations is because a lack of clarity allows people to deny that their negative responses to Blacks are related to racist motives. In particular, this theory proposes that if behaviors and contexts are ambiguous and our evaluations and actions can be explained in ways that do not implicate negative racial attitudes, intergroup bias such as those described above will leak out.…”