You Blind? What, You Can’t See That?: the Impact of Colorblind Attitude on Young Adults’ Activist Behavior Against Racial Injustice and Racism in the U.S.

Abstract

Colorblindness and social dominance orientation (SDO) are social attitudes that contribute to the continuation of racism in the United States (U.S.). Colorblindness encourages people to no longer see race, so when race does matter, they cannot see it. SDO reflects the extent to which people support group equality. The current study was conducted to examine if those social attitudes affected young adults (age 18-35) activist behavior against racism in the U.S. Two hundred twenty-two participants completed a survey consisted of previously validated scales: Colorblind Scale as reported by Neville et al.

Ignoring race and denying racism: A meta-analysis of the associations between colorblind racial ideology, anti-Blackness, and other variables antithetical to racial justice.

“…It is uncertain if the strength of the effect is weaker because of the global nature of the outcome measures. Across correlational studies with a range of adult samples, there is mounting support documenting the positive association between power evasion CBRI and racial prejudice (e.g., Neville et al, 2000;Poteat & Spanierman, 2012), anti-Black prejudice (e.g., Awad et al, 2005;Yi & Todd, 2021), and legitimizing ideologies including social dominance orientation (e.g., Daughtry et al, 2020;Mekawi et al, 2020) and belief in a just world (e.g., Neville et al, 2000;Yi & Todd, 2021). The strength of the effects, however, varies from study to study.…”

“…Specifically, greater levels of power evasion CBRI are associated with lower support for programs to address racial inequities such as affirmative action (e.g., Awad et al, 2005;Yi & Todd, 2021), and lower identification of structural issues as the causes of racial inequality (e.g., Buttner et al, 2007). Furthermore, findings on the association between power evasion CBRI and social justice action are equivocal, with several studies indicating a large association with self-reported antiracist or activist behaviors (Daughtry et al, 2020;Kleiman et al, 2015), and others suggesting no association with advocacy efforts (e.g., Pieterse et al, 2016). The few studies in this area that adopt a color evasion approach are inconsistent as well, with some studies indicating a small but significant positive (e.g., Milojev et al, 2014), negative (e.g., Kunst et al, 2015), or no association with social justice attitudes (e.g., Rosenthal et al, 2012).…”

Awareness, social cognition, and commitment: Developing a social justice orientation in psychology training programs.

“…” We hypothesize that, as individuals develop a greater capacity for critical reflection and are more aware of social inequities that exist, they will become more likely to endorse social justice self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests, and commitment. We propose that one way that critical consciousness increases social justice attitudes is by lowering colorblindness: A contemporary form of racism that seeks to erase the awareness of both racial disparities and the impact of racism on BIPOC individuals (Bonilla-Silva, 2015; Daughtry et al, 2020).…”

“…For a sample of graduate trainees, our study investigated how the constructs of critical consciousness and colorblind racial attitudes, may serve as foundations for the development of a social justice orientation. Daughtry et al (2020) describe how “being less colorblind is to be more conscious of racial injustice, while consciousness is a predictor for activism in young adults (Jacobs & Taylor, 2012; Urrieta, 2007). ” We hypothesize that, as individuals develop a greater capacity for critical reflection and are more aware of social inequities that exist, they will become more likely to endorse social justice self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests, and commitment.…”

Associations between hope and trajectories of critical consciousness among U.S. youth of color

“…to 5 ( Definitely! ), and the items were preceded by the following prompt: “Please tell us honestly how likely it is that as either a teenager or an adult you will …” The scale was originally validated with a sample of 296 undergraduate students, the majority of whom were white (alpha = 0.96), and has been used in studies with more diverse samples as well (e.g., Cadenas et al, 2018; Daughtry et al, 2020). The critical action measure had adequate internal consistency within our sample: Cronbach's alphas were 0.59, 0.60, 0.66, 0.69, and 0.72 (time 1 to time 5).…”