IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v621y2009i1p243-259.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Race in the American Mind: From the Moynihan Report to the Obama Candidacy

Author

Listed:
  • Lawrence D. Bobo

    (Social Sciences at Harvard University)

  • Camille Z. Charles

    (Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract

In 1965 Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed that the “racist virus in the American blood stream still afflicts us.†The authors assess the tenor of racial attitudes in white and black America across the ensuing four decades. Their core conclusion is paradoxical. On one hand, a massive positive change in social norms regarding race has taken place that dislodged Jim Crow ideology and now calls for integration and equality as the rules that should guide black-white interaction. On the other hand, negative stereotypes of African Americans, cultural (not structural or discrimination-based) accounts of black disadvantage, and deep polarization over the appropriate social policy response to racial inequality yield an ongoing legacy of tension and division. The authors link these trends in attitudes to broader changes in society (i.e., racial segregation, job discrimination, rates of intermarriage), patterns of intergroup and interpersonal behavior, and national political dynamics.

Suggested Citation

  • Lawrence D. Bobo & Camille Z. Charles, 2009. "Race in the American Mind: From the Moynihan Report to the Obama Candidacy," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 621(1), pages 243-259, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:621:y:2009:i:1:p:243-259
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716208324759
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716208324759
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716208324759?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Devah Pager, 2003. "The mark of a criminal record," Natural Field Experiments 00319, The Field Experiments Website.
    2. Valentino, Nicholas A. & Hutchings, Vincent L. & White, Ismail K., 2002. "Cues that Matter: How Political Ads Prime Racial Attitudes During Campaigns," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(1), pages 75-90, March.
    3. George Galster, 1990. "Racial steering in urban housing markets: A review of the audit evidence," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 105-129, December.
    4. Douglas Massey & Nancy Denton, 1989. "Hypersegregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Black and Hispanic Segregation Along Five Dimensions," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 26(3), pages 373-391, August.
    5. David M. Cutler & Edward L. Glaeser & Jacob L. Vigdor, 1999. "The Rise and Decline of the American Ghetto," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 455-506, June.
    6. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michael Manville, 2012. "People, Race and Place: American Support for Person- and Place-based Urban Policy, 1973–2008," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(14), pages 3101-3119, November.
    2. Joshua D. Vadeboncoeur, 2023. "“(De)constructing NASCAR Space”: A Black Placemaking Analysis of Fan Agency, Mobility, and Resistance," Societies, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-22, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Judith K. Hellerstein & David Neumark, 2011. "Employment in Black Urban Labor Markets: Problems and Solutions," NBER Working Papers 16986, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jeffrey R. Kling & Jens Ludwig & Lawrence F. Katz, 2005. "Neighborhood Effects on Crime for Female and Male Youth: Evidence from a Randomized Housing Voucher Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 87-130.
    3. Amanda Agan & Sonja Starr, 2016. "Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Statistical Discrimination: A Field Experiment," Working Papers 598, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    4. Bayer, Patrick & McMillan, Robert & Rueben, Kim S., 2004. "What drives racial segregation? New evidence using Census microdata," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 514-535, November.
    5. Devah Pager, 2007. "The Use of Field Experiments for Studies of Employment Discrimination: Contributions, Critiques, and Directions for the Future," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 609(1), pages 104-133, January.
    6. Yemane, Ruta, 2020. "Cumulative disadvantage? The role of race compared to ethnicity, religion, and non-white phenotype in explaining hiring discrimination in the U.S. labour market," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 69, pages 1-1.
    7. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo, 2016. "Field Experiments on Discrimination," NBER Working Papers 22014, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Simon Burgess & Deborah Wilson & Ruth Lupton, 2005. "Parallel Lives? Ethnic Segregation in Schools and Neighbourhoods," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(7), pages 1027-1056, June.
    9. David Neumark, 2018. "Experimental Research on Labor Market Discrimination," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 799-866, September.
    10. Gaulke, Amanda & Cassidy, Hugh & Namingit, Sheryll, 2019. "The effect of post-baccalaureate business certificates on job search: Results from a correspondence study," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    11. Randall Akee & Mutlu Yuksel, 2012. "The Decreasing Effect of Skin Tone on Women's Full-Time Employment," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 65(2), pages 398-426, April.
    12. Devah Pager & Diana Karafin, 2009. "Bayesian Bigot? Statistical Discrimination, Stereotypes, and Employer Decision Making," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 621(1), pages 70-93, January.
    13. Carlsson, Magnus & Eriksson, Stefan, 2014. "Discrimination in the rental market for apartments," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 41-54.
    14. Christina Fong & Erzo Luttmer, 2007. "What determines giving to hurricane katrina victims? Experimental evidence on income, race, and fairness," Artefactual Field Experiments 00046, The Field Experiments Website.
    15. Amon Emeka, 2018. "Where Race Matters Most: Measuring the Strength of Association Between Race and Unemployment Across the 50 United States," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(2), pages 557-573, April.
    16. Letian Zhang, 2019. "Who Loses When a Team Wins? Better Performance Increases Racial Bias," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 40-50, February.
    17. Stephen Benard & Shelley Correll & In Paik, 2007. "Getting a job: Is there a motherhood penalty?," Natural Field Experiments 00227, The Field Experiments Website.
    18. Judith K. Hellerstein & David Neumark, 2008. "Workplace Segregation in the United States: Race, Ethnicity, and Skill," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 459-477, August.
    19. Ennio Bilancini & Leonardo Boncinelli & Jiabin Wu, 2016. "The Interplay of Cultural Aversion and Assortativity for the Emergence of Cooperation," Center for Economic Research (RECent) 121, University of Modena and Reggio E., Dept. of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    20. Gaddis, S. Michael, 2018. "An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences," SocArXiv e5hfc, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:621:y:2009:i:1:p:243-259. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.