When Whites Flock Together: The Social Psychology of White Habitus

Abstract

Residential and social hypersegregation of whites from blacks furthers a socialization process we refer to as "white habitus." "White habitus" geographically and psychologically limits whites' chances of developing meaningful relationships with blacks and other minorities. Using data from the 1997 Survey of College Students' Social Attitudes and the 1998 Detroit Area Study on White Racial Ideology to make our case, we show that geographically, whites' segregated lifestyles psychologically leads them to develop positive views about themselves and negative views about racial others. First, we document the high levels of whites' residential and social segregation. Next, we examine how whites interpret their own self-segregation. Finally, we examine how whites' segregation shapes racial expressions, attitudes, cognitions, and even a sense of aesthetics as illustrated by whites' views on the subject of interracial marriage. 230 • Bonilla-Silva et al.

“Community” as a Reference for American Minority Groups: A Theory of Unintended Negative Consequences

“…This selectively emphasizes and demonstrates belief in collective and, indeed, community-based choice and agency of minority groups in separating from the larger society. This selective emphasis stands in contrast to empirical findings that suggest separation is a self-protective reaction, often to social exclusion and limited social mobility [32] [33] [34]. The "self-segregation" interpretation is rooted in and validates notions of groupness and sameness among members of the community.…”

Race, Power and Economic Extraction in Benton Harbor, MI

“…For instance, the regime depends on overlapping white social and professional networks (Royster, 2003), which I call a "racialized network," to hoard resources. Within this network, a "white habitus" (Bonilla-Silva, Goar, & Embrick, 2006;Burke, 2011) produces shared meaning and signal unconscious rules for spatial inclusion and exclusion (Low, 2009). Despite using diversity ideology (Mayorga-Gallo, 2014) and a maintaining a non-racist orientation, the group reproduces white advantage and black disadvantage.…”

Racial Habitus, Moral Conflict, and White Moral Hegemony Within Interracial Evangelical Organizations

“…Bourgois and Schonberg 2007;Horvat and Antonio 1999;MacLeod 2009) or whites in particular (e.g. Bonilla-Silva 2003;Bonilla-Silva et al 2006;Bonilla-Silva and Embrick 2007;Sallaz 2010). While many of these theorists conceive of race as one among many important conditions forming one's habitus, others-conceptualizing race as central to the experience of all citizens in the United States (e.g., Bonilla-Silva 2003)-view race as a foremost determinant.…”

“…Bonilla-Silva (2003) argues that, due to pervasive residential segregation in the United States, the majority of whites embody a "white habitus," defined as "a racialized, uninterrupted socialization process that conditions and creates whites' racial tastes, perceptions, feelings, and emotions and their views on racial matters" (104). 5 This white habitus serves to promote in-group solidarity among whites, reinforces negative stereotypes about non-whites and, in normalizing and legitimating the avoidance of racial out-groups, regulates white practices, thereby reproducing residential segregation (Bonilla-Silva et al 2006;Bonilla-Silva and Embrick 2007). In a similar vein, Horvat and Antonio (1999) postulate a racialized "organizational habitus": a complex of perceptions, values, and etiquette that are established as institutional standards, through which whites in predominantly white organizations privilege white habitus over non-white habitus and (through symbolic violence) force minority participants to make tremendous social and cultural sacrifices in exchange for the organizational benefits they seek.…”

“…For example, a refined accent, manner, or palate betokens high-class status and, thus, may grant one entrée into certain social networks that broker elite educational and job opportunities. While Bourdieu's application of habitus centered primarily on class, more recently, race theorists have suggested that the structural and cultural conditions associated with an actor's location within the racialized social system of the United States also produce a habitus unique to different racial groups or a "racial habitus": a matrix of tastes, perceptions, and cognitive frameworks that are often unconscious (particularly for whites), and that regulate the racial practices of actors such that they tend to reproduce the very racial distinctions and inequalities that produced them (Bonilla-Silva 2003;Bonilla-Silva et al 2006;Bonilla-Silva and Embrick 2007;Bourgois and Schonberg 2007;Emerson 2006;Horvat and Antonio 1999;Sallaz 2010).…”