Prejudice or Principled Conservatism? Racial Resentment and White Opinion toward Paying College Athletes

Despite its widespread use in studies of race and ethnic politics, there exists a long-standing debate about whether racial resentment primarily measures antiblack prejudice or ideological conservatism. In this paper, we attempt to resolve this debate by examining racial resentment's role in sh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political research quarterly 2017-03, Vol.70 (1), p.209-222
Main Authors: Wallsten, Kevin, Nteta, Tatishe M., McCarthy, Lauren A., Tarsi, Melinda R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Athletes
Attitudes
Bobo, Lawrence
College athletics
College basketball
College sports
Colleges & universities
Congressional elections
Conservatism
Cooperation
Corporate sponsorship
Election results
Elections
Opinions
Political science
Politics
Prejudice
Public opinion
Race
Racism
Resistance
Sports
Tetlock, Philip
Tournaments & championships
White people
Whites
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Summary:Despite its widespread use in studies of race and ethnic politics, there exists a long-standing debate about whether racial resentment primarily measures antiblack prejudice or ideological conservatism. In this paper, we attempt to resolve this debate by examining racial resentment's role in shaping white opinion on a "racialized" policy issue that involves no federal action and no government redistribution of resources: "pay for play" in college athletics. Using cross-sectional and experimental data from the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study and Amazon's Mechanical Turk, we find evidence not only that racial resentment items tap racial predispositions but also that whites rely on these predispositions when forming and expressing their views on paying college athletes. More specifically, we demonstrate that racially resentful whites who were subtly primed to think about African Americans are more likely to express opposition to paying college athletes when compared with similarly resentful whites who were primed to think about whites. Because free-market conservatism, resistance to changes in the status quo, opposition to expanding federal power, and reluctance to endorse government redistributive policies cannot possibly explain these results, we conclude that racial resentment is a valid measure of antiblack prejudice.
ISSN:1065-9129
1938-274X
DOI:10.1177/1065912916685186