Department of Sociology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022 Mar 1;119(9). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2116306119.
Due to the centrality of race and racism in social, economic, and political life, coupled with the racially privileged position of White people, the assessment of White racial attitudes is an ongoing concern. There is a great deal of survey-based, quantitative work that demonstrates a compelling case of White attitudinal polarization-a grouping of authoritarian, racist attitudes versus another alliance of progressive, antiracist attitudes-an increasingly racialized culture war. However, other studies, largely qualitative and open-ended, demonstrate the heterogeneous, shifting, and hypocritical nature of White discourse about race. To resolve this paradox, I refrain from the assumption that White racial "attitudes" are essentially bifurcated, while I also refuse the contention that White people produce spontaneous narratives whole-cloth. Rather, I argue that with sustained attention to time, context, and triangulation, we can better understand how and why White people speak of People of Color in positive ways one moment and negative the next, marshaling both to defend, rationalize, or improve their racialized subject position. I argue that these contradictions are-à la Schrödinger's famous thought experiment-"superposition strategies." Both racist and antiracist attitudes are simultaneously alive and dead in the same individual or group. Contradictory White discourse helps maintain a sense of self-efficacy and coherent White racial identity within conflictual and politically supercharged social situations, as well as within racially unequal social structures.
由于种族和种族主义在社会、经济和政治生活中的核心地位，加上白人在种族上的特权地位，对白人种族态度的评估是一个持续关注的问题。有大量基于调查的定量工作表明，白人态度的极化现象令人信服——一种是权威主义、种族主义态度的组合，另一种是进步主义、反种族主义态度的联盟——这是一场日益加剧的种族文化战争。然而，其他研究，主要是定性和开放式的，表明了白人关于种族的话语具有异质性、易变性和虚伪性。为了解决这个悖论，我避免假设白人种族“态度”本质上是二分的，同时我也拒绝这样的论点，即白人会自发地全盘编造叙事。相反，我认为，通过持续关注时间、背景和三角关系，我们可以更好地理解为什么白人们会在某一时刻以积极的方式谈论有色人种，而在下一刻又以消极的方式谈论有色人种，同时利用这两种方式来维护、合理化或改善他们的种族化主体地位。我认为，这些矛盾——就像薛定谔著名的思想实验一样——是“叠加策略”。在同一个个体或群体中，种族主义和反种族主义态度同时存在，又同时不存在。矛盾的白人话语有助于在冲突和政治紧张的社会环境中，以及在种族不平等的社会结构中，保持自我效能感和连贯的白人种族认同。
