[15] Following the Jim Crow era, when older, overtly racist business practices were outlawed, some turned to more discreet methods of racism.
[16] In 1981, Howard Schuman replicated a study originally performed in 1950 to test discrimination in New York City restaurants on the Upper East Side.
[16] The term symbolic racism derives from the fact that the opinions expressed characterize black people as an abstract group ("as in the anonymous 'they' in 'if they would only…'") rather than as specific individuals.
In addition, those who hold symbolically racist beliefs may also believe in traditional American values such as hard work, individuality, and self-restraint.
"[6] Furthermore, those with symbolic prejudice tend to believe in the equality of opportunity, which includes access to resources such as education, housing, and employment.
Government intervention when individuals do not have the same talent, effort, or historical background would violate traditional values of equality of opportunity.
However, citing a number of measurement problems, Sears and Henry published the Symbolic Racism 2000 (SR2K) Scale in 2002 in the journal Political Psychology.
Opposition to preferential affirmative action programs (which assign more weight to certain demographics and give preference to target groups) was uniquely predicted by an individual's belief in merit principles.
The results revealed high levels of support from White Americans, ranging from 75% to nearly 100%, regarding the principles for school integration, equal opportunity employment, and open housing.
The group that did not receive any instructions from the president of the company recommended a black candidate 61% of the time, regardless of the individual's modern-symbolic prejudice rating.
[21] While symbolic racism was originally conceptualized as a prejudice specifically against black people in the United States, scholars have expanded the concept to apply to other groups and locales.
In the United States, research has been conducted on symbolic racism as it relates to Latinos and Asians, as well as modern sexism, anti-fat bias, and heterosexism.
[4] For example, Mingying Fu conducted an experiment in which symbolic racism was shown to influence attitudes toward out-group members and racial policies.
[23] In this context, the Australian version of the symbolic racism construct is defined as "the use of affective responses and beliefs that are well accepted within a dominant majority racial group as justifying its advantaged position".
[23] They measured the relationship between racial prejudice and support for Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party using two postal surveys based on a random sampling of names from electoral registers.
The choices were: The findings suggest that perceived cultural threats appeared to have a strong sway on the attitudes toward the European Union.
[6] Additionally, within American society, institutionalized practices have been influenced by structural racism resulting in "the subordination and devaluation of minority groups".
[26] Reyna et al. (2009) found that negative attitudes towards rap music are associated with the idea that African Americans are to blame for their economic plights.
[28] This potentially undermines a primary claim made by Sears and Henry - that their measure of symbolic racism is a blend of "anti-Black affect" and "conservatism".
For instance, if one believes that a group should receive "special favors" they would answer the question in a manner coded as more racially resentful.
Tarman and Sears evaluated this claim and concluded that symbolic racism is an independent belief system encompassing discrete attitudes from those of conservatives.
In a qualitative study, Mellor (2003) conducted interviews with Aboriginal Australians in which he found that many experience racism and that much of it seems to be old-fashioned rather than modern.