Black Beliefs and Racial Identity Norms: An Examination of How Black Americans Understand Racism

Abstract

Past research has shown that racial group norms are highly effective at unifying political behavior within the Black American community. Given the salience of racism within the Black community, it might be expected that Black Americans are especially united on the question of what does and does not count as racism. Using national surveys, we find that, not only do Blacks' personal beliefs about what does and does not count as racism vary substantially, so do their expectations about what other Black Americans believe, suggesting norms for how to apply the term racism are unclear within the Black community. However, despite the weakness of these norms, experimentally priming racial group norms causes Black Americans to express personal beliefs that are more consistent with group norms. Ultimately, this broadens the perception of what counts as racism within the Black American community.

Keywords: norms, beliefs, racism, opinion, survey experiments