It's the Message, Not the Messenger: The Declining Significance of Black–White Contact in a “Colorblind” Society*

Abstract

358 EILEEN O'BRIEN AND KATHLEEN ODELL KORGEN racism" or "laissez-faire" racism. These scholars alerted us that survey results trumpeting declining levels of prejudice were not telling the whole story. For example, Kinder and Sears (1981) coined the term "symbolic racism" to describe the contradiction they found in their survey results whereby respondents supported ideals of equal opportunity regardless of race, but did not support public policy measures which would bring about such equality. More recently, Bonilla-Silva and Forman (2000) contrasted quantitative survey data with in-depth interview data from the same respondents to show that more intensive interviews yielded more prejudicial responses on issues such as affirmative action, interracial dating, and the work ethic of African Americans. These results indicate that, although answers to traditional survey questions on prejudice may paint a picture of an increasingly more racially tolerant society, other measures paint a much less optimistic picture. When given the chance to evaluate public policy or to reflect candidly on their views, many white Americans exhibit a new form of racial ideology that is different from that which dominated when the contact hypothesis was first proposed in the 1950s.At that time, prohibitions against interracial friendships, dating, and marriage were socially and legally enforced. These arrangements were supported by an essentialist racial ideology (Frankenberg 1993) that justified racial segregation based on the innate racial superiority of whites and inferiority of nonwhites. Those whites who did establish the kinds of contacts with people of color that the contact hypothesis describes had to clearly make a break with this dominant racial ideology. Some even risked their lives to white terrorism, especially in the South. Yet, as colorblindness becomes the more dominant U.S. discourse on race relations, white Americans make interracial contacts under a climate that encourages and "celebrate[s] diversity" (Demott 1995). Not only do interracial contacts now have support of the law, but popular culture often welcomes these contacts (e.g., many films now portray close cross-racial friendships, perhaps to the point of exaggeration (Demott 1995)). Those who pursue interracial contacts in this era, far from breaking with the dominant culture, are merely following its expressed ideals. As several scholars (e.g., Carr 1997; Frankenberg 1993; Williams 1998) have noted, "colorblindness" forms the basis for U.S. racial ideology today. Under this ideology, we are not supposed to notice race. No longer is interracial contact an act of risk or bravery that requires great courage; indeed, dominant racial ideology tells us it should be unremarkable.Bonilla-Silva (2003) outlines four main "frames" of colorblind racism: abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and minimization of racism. Abstract liberalism uses the language of equal opportunity and free choice for all as a basis for opposing many concrete policies of antidiscrimin...

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