Why 'Colorblind' Isn't the Answer
By Jennifer Millman
July 24, 2007
Most white people don't get the continued inequities facing black people. A provocative new study finds that when asked about hypothetical scenarios for the rest of their lives, many whites see giving up TV as up to 10 times worse than becoming a black person.
Why is this problematic? If white people understand current racial/ethnic disparities, one would expect their support for programs to level the playing field such as reparations and affirmative action to be high. That's not the case.
For example, national surveys show that 90 percent to 96 percent of whites do not think the government should pay reparations for slavery, compared with 55 percent to 67 percent of blacks. Not much research has been done on the psychological basis for such resistance among whites--until now.
Philip Mazzocco, assistant psychology professor at Ohio State University at Mansfield and postdoctoral research fellow at Ohio State's Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity, set out with colleagues to investigate why, despite clear evidence of persistent racial/ethnic inequities, most whites do not support reparations. Is it prejudice or unconscious bias? Is it ignorance, and if so, is it motivated or blissful? Their findings appear in the most recent issue of Harvard's Du Bois Review. Click here to read an abstract of the study.
Read what DiversityInc readers think about reparations [scroll down]. (See also: Who Is Apologizing for Slavery?)
We also asked DiversityInc readers to share their stories about people "not getting it," and their thoughts on the "struggle" for equality. Here's what they said.
(See also: Why Whites Don't Understand the 'Struggle')
Top-Line Findings
In Mazzocco's study, 928 white people of varying age, student status and geographic location were asked versions of this question: How much should you be paid to continue to live the remainder of your life as a black person?
In some cases, whites required 10 times the amount of money to forgo TV for the rest of their lives than to change their race to black. Average "race-change requests"--the amount whites would need to become black for the rest of their lives--ranged from $75 to $10,000, compared with $100,000 to $1,000,000 to forgo TV. What's the explanation for the gap?
"When we asked people to explain these requests, the most common response was 'Racial parity. Things are equal,'" says Mazzocco, who is white. "For those who listed racial parity, their median request was $37.50. For the group of participants who say there's still discrimination, the average response was $300,000."
Still, whites who were aware of disparities were not necessarily more inclined to support reparations. Why?
"Whites feel they have something to lose here, as opposed to something to gain, especially when we talk about reparations," says Mazzocco. "The contrast [between slavery and present-day disparities] is so extreme that they think there are no lingering disparities between blacks and whites."
To the extent that disparities are perceived as "absent, minimal or declining," whites will not support programs to level the playing field such as reparations or affirmative action.
"The issue here is whether this is motivated distortion," says Mazzocco. "Are whites intentionally clinging to escape white guilt--the idea that they're still benefiting from someone else's misfortune--or is it a simple lack of information?
"To some extent it's both," he says, "but a simple lack of information plays the largest role for the lion's share of individuals."
One writer disagrees. In response to Mazzocco's conclusion, a University of Texas at Austin journalism professor, Robert Jensen, offers a contrasting explanation in a guest column for Alternet.org for why most whites oppose reparations and similar programs.
"White Americans are mean and uncaring, morally bankrupt and ethically flawed, because white supremacy has taken a huge toll on white people's capacity to be fully human," writes Jensen, who is white.
White people aren't fully human? This author clearly didn't read the entire study, because if he did, he would have known that the statistics the researchers provide in the six studies they conducted reduce his assertion to a blatant inaccuracy.
Where's the Disconnect?
For younger generations, growing up in an atmosphere where mutual respect across racial difference is the norm may create an illusion of a level playing field. College students comprised a large percentage of participants in this study, notes Mazzocco.
"Lots of these students grew up in rural areas or all-white suburbs and there really is ignorance about the black experience in present-day America," he says. "They've had no experience that would clue them in to not only black cost, but white privilege. If there is exposure through mass media, TV or entertainment, you're getting the success stories."
In the study, educating whites about prevailing inequities didn't significantly increase the amount they would need to be paid to become black for the rest of their lives. Awareness is necessary to garner their support for reparations and other programs such as affirmative action, the study shows, but it's not sufficient.
The study suggests the most effective way to gain whites' buy-in for programs that address disparities is for them to "live in the other person's shoes."
That's one reason progressive companies are cultivating cross-cultural dialogue in an attempt to understand one another's experiences and perceptions, and how that impacts behavior and, ultimately, work-force productivity.
For case studies of Top 50 companies that get it right, read Why You Need Diversity to Be Competitive from the June issue of DiversityInc magazine.
"Proactive programs such as reparations necessarily entail targeting a given group for some advantage (a color-conscious approach to racial policy), and it is this targeting that is seen as especially inconsistent with the 'American way,'" according to the study. "As a result, a color-blind approach to racial policy has become increasingly popular among whites. The color-blind approach to racial policy, however, should actually exacerbate racial disparity, given persistent and systemic white privileges."
Ward Connerly's Threat
Mazzocco's prior research shows that "colorblind" approaches that seek to de-emphasize differences mask actual disparities. Avoiding talking about the social construct of race doesn't make it disappear; it just makes it more difficult to address.
"There is a concentrated effort in our country led by Ward Connerly ... their message is, to the extent we do have disparities, 'These are black people's problems and they need to deal with it themselves. Any attempt to assist them would stigmatize them, and at the end of the day, this would make problems worse and whites don't like it either,'" says Mazzocco. "This is the message that's really getting out there--this 'colorblind' message."
Ward Connerly is the California businessman who successfully led the campaign to end affirmative action in public education, employment and contracting in Michigan last fall and helped pass similar voter-approved initiatives in California and Washington state. He currently is working to get anti-affirmative-action proposals on the ballots of Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma on Nov. 4, 2008.
"We don't have a colorblind society. If we did there wouldn't be a large correlation between race and every socioeconomic factor," says Mazzocco. "It's not blacks' fault; as easy as that is to believe and as commonly as that message is put out there by certain factions, there are explanations that apply much better."
And recent social psychology research shows that racial categorization happens automatically. In this paradigm, those who purport to advance race relations and equity by ignoring race as a point of policy and public dialogue threaten to defeat their purpose.
To learn more about this research, read Can Ward Connerly Be Stopped?
"For anyone who's even a little bit knowledgeable about racial disparity and the most commonly accepted explanations for it, it's shocking to see the kinds of ads and arguments that Ward Connerly is putting out there," says Mazzocco. "And yet for many white Americans, it's consistent with their ignorance of ongoing disparities."
What does this study say about the progress--or lack thereof--we've made in the last 50 years? "It's a good news/bad news story where yes, certainly, prejudice has declined markedly over the last 60 to 70 years, not to say it's not still out there," says Mazzocco. "It's been replaced with this ignorance of the black experience, which could be every bit as dangerous because you see programs that are designed to address racial disparities that are not being supported any longer because of this kind of ignorance. Ignorance alone will be enough for people like Ward Connerly to get his 53 percent support."
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