Racial Cues and Appeals Flashcards
What is racial resentment and racial priming?
Racial Resentment:The belief that African Americans are not biologically inferior (old fashioned racism), but that African Americans are not living up to an American standard of work ethic
Racial Priming: “Cues in information environment, such as stereotypical imagery or racially coded
language, activate or deactivate voters’ negative racial attitudes, often about blacks, with consequences for voters’ preferences about policy and vote choice” (Stephens-Dougan 2021)
(Using implicit appeals and cues to activate peoples’ racial schemas and
resentment to motivate their racial attitudes to drive their vote choice)
How do voters respond to implicit and explicit cues?
For many years, the conventional wisdom was that explicit racial
appeals would be rejected by voters
* Violates norms of equality
* Though recent research suggests this may not be true anymore
* Trump’s victory in 2016 after he made many explicitly racist
statements also calls into question this claim
Older research suggests that calling out an implicit racial appeal as racist
would mitigate the effects of the appeal
* Recent work suggests this may not be the case
* One study finds that if a White candidate calls out the racial appeal, then
voters will recognize it as racist but not if a Black candidate does
* Another finds that only Whites with liberal racial attitudes will recognize
the racial appeal if they are made aware it is racist
What are historical examples of racial cues and appeals in presidential campaigns?
The Solid South
* The Democratic party dominated Southern politics from the end of
Reconstruction until 1964
* Their control on Southern politics was due to their commitment to racial
segregation and discrimination
* After the Democratic party made commitments to civil rights, their domination
began to slip
* “We have lost the South for a generation” –LBJ, allegedly after signing the Civil
Rights Act
Nixon’s Southern Strategy
* Nixon recognized that the South could come into play for Republicans
if he was able to tap into their racial attitudes
* Embraced certain code words
* “Law and Order”
* ”State’s Rights”
* “Freedom of Choice”
Reagan
* Launched his campaign at the location of the murder of civil rights
activists
* Also focused on “state’s rights”
* “Welfare queens”
How effective are counterstrategies?
Deracialization
* The theory that Black candidates should deemphasize their race in
order to win the support of white people
* Obama in 2008 tried to avoid talking about race throughout the
campaign
* Research suggests that this is an effective strategy for Black
candidates to gain white support
A Diversifying America
* As America becomes more diverse, it’s possible Whites will feel their
status threatened
* Recent work suggests that when Whites are made aware of changing
demographics, they express more conservative beliefs and more
punitive immigration attitudes
* Likely caused by status threat to their White identity
* Can activate White identity through racial appeals
Trump 2016
* Much work in political science has attempted to explain Trump’s
victory and support by investigating White status threat
* One study looked directly at Obama 2012 and Trump 2016 voters, and
found that white status threat better predicted voting for Trump than
economic insecurity
* Another study finds that Trump’s rhetoric towards immigrants
activated White identity and moved White support towards him
Beyond Whites
* Much research on racial appeals focuses on the effects on White
people
* Research finds that Black identity is best activated through explicit
appeals rather than implicit appeals
* Xenophobic rhetoric about Latinos can motivate political participation
amongst Latinos with a strong Latino-identity
