Across the last half of the 20th century and in the wake of the civil rights movement, the racial attitudes of White Americans slowly liberalized, largely through generational replacement. In Racial Stasis, Christopher D. DeSante and Candis Watts Smith examine whether and how the arrival of the Millennial Generation—those born between 1981 and 1996, who are now roughly one-third of the population—has altered the prospects for racial progress.
The book develops three main theses. First, White Millennials are not a vanguard of progressive change in race relations. Although more liberal than previous generations on matters of gender equality and gay rights, they tend to be indistinguishable from their predecessors on comparable questions regarding race. Across dozens of questions tapping racial beliefs and attitudes there are few in which the younger generation exhibits a more progressive bent.
Second, the racial views of White Millennials are marked by contradictions, reflecting countervailing forces within the ostensibly post-racial environment they have experienced. They condemn racism but don't see it as systemic or widespread; they acknowledge white privilege but don't see race as much of an obstacle to getting ahead.
Third, political scientists need new measures to capture how White Millennials and others understand race and racism in the 21st century, just as “modern racism” measures were introduced to capture ideas taking hold among Whites in the 1960s. The book makes the case for new survey questions to tap awareness of institutional racism, acknowledgement of White privilege, empathy toward victims of racial injustice, and fear of racial others.
Desante and Smith develop and enrich the first thesis throughout the book. Chapters 2 and 3 estimate Age-Period-Cohort models of racial attitudes using longitudinal data from the American National Election Studies and the General Social Surveys. This allows them to isolate how Millennial cohorts differ from their predecessors while simultaneously estimating age and period effects. Later chapters (6 and 8) work with cross-sectional data from the 2014 and 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies (CCES) to show how Millennials differ from older Whites on a much wider array of measures.
The results show that White Millennials are just as likely as their predecessors to hold racist beliefs about Black inferiority and negative stereotypes of Blacks as violent or lazy. They are similar to previous generations in anti-Black affect, commitment to equality, and support for specific policies. These patterns contrast clearly with those found for gender equality and gay rights, where the Millennials stand out as more liberal. At the same time, however, there are some areas in which younger Whites do appear more progressive. They are more supportive of interracial dating and marriage, show a greater recognition of White privilege, score lower on the well-known “racial resentment” scale, and express more empathy for victims of racism.
This somewhat mixed portrait ties into the second major thesis of the book, the push-pull of countervailing forces shaping White Millennials’ views on race. Survey data provide some of the evidence. For example, White Millennials are more likely than older Whites to believe that their whiteness provides them with advantages, but are also more likely to say that they have personally experienced discrimination on the basis of their race, and are less likely to believe that “race is very important in determining who is successful and who is not.”
Richer evidence on this theme comes in two chapters (4 and 5) that use in-depth interviews to explore how White Millennials think about racism, racial diversity, and racial policies. These chapters draw interpretive frames from the writings of critical race theorists and highlight the milieu in which the Millennials were raised, one dominated by a color-blind ideology where race is not to be noticed or discussed, and where systemic racism is associated with America's past, upended by the civil rights movement. Throughout these chapters the portrait emerges of a generation standing still on the “moving walkway” of racial inequality rather than as a force working against it. They do not see racism as systemic or structural, but instead as acts of prejudiced individuals found in isolated pockets of the country, whose numbers are dwindling. They decry stereotyping of and discrimination against Blacks, but also disclaim any notice given to race and are quick to point out that Whites are stereotyped and discriminated against too. They express an appreciation for diversity but do not actually seek it out or live diverse lives. They recognize the reality of racial segregation and racial disparities, but often explain them away as “natural” or as due to class or coincidence. Many express ambivalence (and misunderstandings) about race targeted policies, questioning the harm to racial minorities from “Stop and Frisk” policies and doubting the value and need for affirmative action.
Chapters 6 and 7 press the agenda of distilling new survey questions to capture elements of White Millennials’ racial views that are missed by conventional political science measures. Chapter 6 analyzes a large set of candidate items developed by other scholars using data from the 2014 CCES. Chapter 7 assesses the utility of a short battery carried in the 2016 CCES, with two affective items (“I am fearful of people of other races,” “I am angry that racism exists”) and two cognitive (“White people in the U.S. have certain advantages because of the color of their skin,” “Racial problems in the U.S. are rare, isolated situations”). Approval of interracial marriage and support for Donald Trump are strongly (if variably) associated with each of the new measures. We will no doubt see more use of these survey questions in years to come.
Overall, Racial Stasis is an outstanding and innovative contribution to the literature on Whites’ racial attitudes. It provides a compelling, if discouraging, portrait of a young generation of Whites whose beliefs, attitudes, and experiences are contributing to inertia rather than progress in race relations. The book should inspire more research tackling the question of how new racial ideas have become layered onto old, making effective and sophisticated use of in-depth interviews, and engaging further questions about generational continuity and change.
