Our country will be great if we honor the ways of our forefathers, do what the authorities tell us to do, and get rid of the “rotten apples” who are ruining everything. ____
Some of the best people in our country are those who are challenging our government, criticizing religion, and ignoring the “normal” way things are supposed to be done. ____
The “old-fashioned ways” and the “old-fashioned values” still show the best way to live. ____
Everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences, even if it makes them different from everyone else. ____
The only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our traditional values, put some tough leaders in power, and silence the troublemakers spreading bad ideas. ____
There is no “one right way” to live life; everybody has to create their own way. ____
We will return to these totals later in the chapter. In the meantime, let’s pick up where we left off regarding our discussion of caste, hierarchy, and threat as pillars of Black oppression. In the current chapter, we will undertake a more nuanced exploration of the concept of threat by making a distinction between structural threat, which is a disruption to the racial hierarchy or status quo, and psychological threat, which compromises an individual’s sense of competence, certainty, status, or self-worth. Both types of threats can occur simultaneously. The Black farmer in the film Mississippi Burning, mentioned in the previous chapter, posed both types of threat to the White farmer. First, he was a threat to the existing social structure, because a Black farmer who is more successful than a White farmer is at odds with the racial hierarchy. Second, he was a psychological threat to the White farmer, whose self-esteem suffered because a Black man had outperformed him. If we are going to talk honestly about racism, we need to discuss the manifestations of these two types of threats in organizations and society in general, in addition to the formidable challenges that they pose for people of color who are simply trying to make a living.
As we established in the previous chapter, social hierarchies don’t just represent the way that things are; they also symbolically represent people’s assumptions about the way that things “should” be. When outcomes deviate from traditional hierarchical structures, it destabilizes the status quo and creates a structural threat. These structural threats can assume various forms, including changes to representation and/or rank. For example, research has shown that giving White people information projecting that they will no longer represent the majority in America three decades from now is sufficient to increase both implicit and explicit racism. In one study, participants were randomly assigned to read a newspaper article that reported either the current racial demographics in the United States (with Whites as the majority group) or the projected U.S. racial demographic in the year 2042 (with Whites no longer as the majority group). The authors found that Whites exposed to the article describing racial demographics in 2042 later expressed more negative implicit and explicit racial attitudes, not just toward Blacks but toward Hispanics and Asians as well. In addition, they expressed a stronger preference to interact with and be surrounded by Whites, compared with White participants who read about current U.S. racial demographics.1
Structural threat can be activated not just by shifts in numerical representation, and in which groups constitute the majority or minority, but also by individual behaviors that challenge who is supposedly superior or inferior. In other words, one high-achieving Black person can also represent a threat to the racial caste system. Being successful if you’re Black, as in the case of the farmer in Mississippi Burning, represents a direct threat to the established social order.
Black success isn’t what White America signed up for when enslaved Africans were brought to America. Blacks were never meant to be prosperous, or powerful, or even educated, and measures were put in place during and after slavery to ensure that they did not rise above their prescribed station. Even though America’s slave-owning Whites are long dead, versions of the structures they established still linger, affecting people’s attitudes, beliefs, and expectations or prescriptions for who should be in power. As a result, Blacks who are “too” successful—meaning more successful than White people think that Black people should be—are seen as a threat.
The notion that achievement can be perceived as a negative thing may seem puzzling to many people. The Black farmer’s success depicted in Mississippi Burning seems particularly innocuous, given that he is not on a soapbox bragging about his farming genius, nor is he leveraging his success to gain political power. He’s just trying to make a decent living. Blacks who display any measure of confidence, competence, or ambition may be seen as “uppity,” potentially rendering them a structural threat, thereby provoking hostile responses from Whites. Journalist Trymaine Lee has written about the true-life story of Elmore “Buddy” Bolling, a successful Black farmer and businessman in Alabama who was shot seven times by a group of White men in 1947 because he was apparently “too successful to be a Negro.”2 There is also the case of Anthony Crawford, whom civil rights activist and attorney Bryan Stevenson describes as a man who in 1916 “was lynched in South Carolina for being successful enough to refuse a low price for his cotton.”3 You may be thinking, “But those examples are from the Deep South in the first half of the twentieth century.” Is Black achievement a threat in the twenty-first-century workplace?
Unfortunately, the idea of Black excellence or power is still something the country struggles with in this day and age. Consider the prominent example of the election of Barack Obama. Entire books have been written on the subject, analyzing whether, how, and to what degree race played a role in resistance to his presidential legitimacy and authority.4 But it’s not just Obama and the highest office in the land. Black leaders in general are seen as a threat, in large part because they contradict people’s profile of the ideal or typical leader as a White male.5 It’s not just images and ideals that Black leaders violate; they also threaten established patterns of actual leader representation, dominated by White males. This tendency can be seen acutely in the C-suite. Although White men are roughly 30 percent of the overall U.S. population today, they represent over 90 percent of U.S. Fortune 500 CEO positions. As discussed in the last chapter, what is descriptive becomes prescriptive, so the overrepresentation of White males also reinforces the notion that only White males “should” occupy leadership roles.
A plethora of empirical evidence supports the idea that White people have a hard time accepting Black leadership. One recent study reveals that White male managers identify less strongly with their organization following the appointment of a minority CEO, and they subsequently provide less help to colleagues in the organization, particularly ethnic minority colleagues.6 A different study analyzed interviews with White male CEOs and found that racial bias and envy increased their tendency to overly blame minority CEOs in other companies for any low performance in those respective firms, rather than making situational attributions. Furthermore, this bad-mouthing of minority CEOs by White CEOs led journalists, particularly White male journalists, to write negative articles blaming the minority CEOs personally, rather than taking into account situational factors.7 Because White male leaders are far less likely than minority leaders to be disciplined or fired when they make performance-based mistakes on the job,8 it is unlikely that the negative evaluation of minority CEOs is due to genuine concerns about competence.
Even when Black leaders are perceived as supremely competent, it simply produces a different set of problems. Recall the Black farmer again. Competence itself makes Black men threatening. A 2019 study from the finance sector bolsters this idea. Asset-allocation managers, who were predominantly White, responded differently to venture capital funds led by a competent or incompetent Black or White fund manager. In one experiment, the asset-allocation managers discriminated against the competent Black fund manager who had a track record of high performance compared with the White fund manager with a similarly competent track record. Even more interesting, further analysis showed that after reviewing the highly competent, Black male–led proposal, asset allocation managers rated their own social status as being lower. These findings echo the sentiment of the White farmer in Mississippi Burning: If White managers are not better than a Black person—especially in a domain, like finance, that White males have traditionally dominated—then who are they better than?9 Consistent with this idea, after reviewing the low-competence, Black male–led proposal, asset allocation managers rated their own status as being higher.10 A real-world example of the vulnerability of high-performing Black professionals can be found in the case of Tidjane Thiam, the former CEO of Credit Suisse, who endured race-based harassment—and was ultimately forced to resign—despite demonstrating a very high level of competence.11
Black people are well aware of the negative consequences that their high performance can produce. Empirical research suggests that Black employees and students often downplay their achievements out of fear that they could produce negative repercussions for them. In one study, social psychologists Julie Phelan and Laurie Rudman provided feedback to Black participants indicating that they had excelled on a portion of the LSAT that ostensibly measures leadership aptitude and ability. They also measured participants’ actual performance on the test. Black students who scored highest on the test were the most likely to express fear of negative backlash.12 Moreover, they found that fear of negative backlash explained their reluctance to publicize their outstanding score on the test when given the choice.13
Again, it may seem strange to many readers that someone would be punished for being competent.14 But Blacks in America live in a complex and maddening catch-22 where you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Blacks who behave consistently with negative stereotypes (e.g., incompetently) are often preferred, both because they justify racism and because they do not represent a threat to existing hierarchical structures. At the same time, Blacks who challenge negative stereotypes by succeeding are applauded and admired, on some level, while also being resented and castigated for upending the status quo. This is particularly true if their high competence is coupled with high confidence, rather than the meekness and modesty displayed by high performers in the aforementioned study.
Let’s explore examples of the need to neutralize Black competence with docility. One would think that sports might be a domain in which Blacks might be permitted to be competent and confident, on account of pervasive stereotypes about superior Black athleticism. But a closer look at both anecdotal and scientific evidence tells a very different story. For decades we have witnessed the backlash suffered by competent and confident Black athletes such as Serena Williams and Tiger Woods. At first blush, one might discount these two examples because they excel in “country club” sports that are traditionally and currently dominated by Whites.
What about sports with higher Black representations, like basketball and football, with Blacks representing roughly 75 percent and 67 percent of all the players, respectively? Ta-Nehisi Coates compared the treatment LeBron James received in the media in 2010 when he confidently and unapologetically exercised his freedom to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat to that of a “runaway slave.”15 Mr. James was widely condemned as being too “uppity.” We find similar dynamics in the NFL. Terrell Owens, considered by many to be the greatest wide receiver to ever play the game, had a delayed induction into the Hall of Fame, not based on his record—that spoke for itself—but because of his perceived arrogance.16 Colin Kaepernick faced ostracism and alienation when he had the temerity to protest racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem, which was perceived by many as an act of arrogance as well as a lack of patriotic gratitude. For years, journalists and sports commentators have made the case that backlash against Black athletes is essentially an expression of White disdain for Black arrogance, and in football, this contempt has traditionally been instituted in policies such as the “celebration penalty” against players who performed after touchdowns.17
Scientific data supports the commentators’ conclusions in the case of celebration penalties.18 After both analyzing NFL archival evidence and conducting in-person studies, researchers found that Black football players were more likely than White football players (remember Tim Tebow and “Tebowing”?) to be punished for celebrating after touchdowns. In the laboratory, non-Black participants who read about Black or White football players who celebrated after touchdowns were more likely to negatively evaluate, and confer a lower salary on, Black players compared with White players. However, White players and Black players were treated equally when they did not celebrate their touchdowns.19 Further analysis demonstrates that both Black and White players who celebrate after touchdowns were rated as being more arrogant than players of either race who did not celebrate after touchdowns. However, the more arrogance was associated with Black players, the less money these players were given. By contrast, White players’ monetary bonus was not reduced due to arrogance. Stated differently, White players were entitled to arrogance, whereas Black players were punished for displaying arrogance. These divergent reactions to Black and White players’ arrogance, and even their roles—White and Black quarterbacks, for example, are perceived and described differently20—reflect deeper hierarchical assumptions and prescriptions about the “place” of Black and White people, and which behaviors are deemed acceptable or unacceptable.
Although Black confidence and arrogance are punished, Black humility and deference are rewarded. Indeed, research confirms that Blacks benefit from disarming mechanisms, or features, traits, or behaviors that make them appear more meek, affable, or docile and less assertive, confident, or authoritative.21 Some examples of disarming mechanisms include smiling behavior,22 speaking softly or using nonethnic English,23 not having a tall physical stature,24 being more assimilated into White culture and less identified with Black culture,25 or even whistling classical music to signal erudition and sophistication.26 Because disarming mechanisms can make Blacks appear less threatening to Whites, they sometimes facilitate Blacks’ access to leadership roles.27
My own research reveals that Black CEOs tend to be more baby-faced than White CEOs, because the more cherubic facial structure makes them appear less threatening.28 And the more baby-faced Black CEOs were, the larger their company revenues and personal salary tended to be, compared with Black CEOs who were relatively less baby-faced. The opposite effect emerged for White male CEOs. Being more mature-faced, with a strong jaw and angular features, was more predictive of success among the White male CEOs, because White male leaders do not need to be disarmed—they need to be “armed.” Because hierarchical prescriptions entitle them to lead, White males benefit the most from facial features that display the gravitas, maturity, competence, and authority that people associate with leaders.
Similarly, White male leaders are allowed to behave in a dominant, forceful, or assertive manner, whereas Black male leaders are punished for showing the exact same behaviors. In one study, participants read about a meeting between a leader—a senior vice president of a Fortune 500 company—and a subordinate employee who was failing to meet performance expectations. The leader behaved in either a dominant and assertive manner, demanding that the employee improve their performance, or in a more docile and communal manner, kindly encouraging the employee to improve their performance. The researchers varied the race and gender of the leader, so that participants read about either a Black man, a Black woman, a White man, or a White woman senior vice president who behaved in a dominant or docile fashion.
The results showed that the Black male leader and the White female leader were rated significantly more negatively when they showed dominance rather than docility. On the other hand, the evaluation of the White male leader did not depend on what type of behavior he adopted. White male leaders could show dominance without suffering any penalty for it. Interestingly, Black women also were not penalized for showing dominance.29 However, follow-up research suggests several caveats. First, Black women can show dominance only when they exhibit what is referred to as administrative agency—assertiveness to get the job done, rather than ambitious agency—assertiveness to get ahead or gain personal power.30 Second, Black women can show dominance only when their performance is nearly perfect. If they make mistakes, they are penalized more than either White women or Black men, presumably because they don’t fit the ideal “leader” profile, being neither male nor White.31 Finally, Black women are given more latitude because they are seen as less feminine than White women and less threatening than Black men, which frees them to behave in a more dominant manner.32
If we summarize the origins of racism (and sexism) in a single word, it is power. It is both the desire to maintain power and the fear of losing power. The name of the game is preservation of the existing social hierarchy, in large part because it is an arrangement that feels comfortable, secure, and familiar to many White people. On the flip side, feeling uncomfortable or insecure can lead to higher levels of racial bias. In the next section, we will examine why this happens.
All organisms have a basic drive to survive, which compels them to steer clear of danger. However, there is a difference between actual danger and simply being fearful of danger. Fear can emerge even when environments are perfectly safe. The conscious or unconscious sense of fear or anxiety, in the absence of any real danger, is what I refer to as psychological threat (in contrast to realistic threat). Psychological threat manifests itself in numerous ways, including fear of uncertainty, fear of chaos, fear of inadequacy, and even existential fear of one’s own mortality. And they all can lead to heightened levels of racism.
Remember the questions that you answered at the beginning of the chapter? Look back at your totals. If your odd-numbered total (for questions 1, 3, and 5) was above fifteen and your even-numbered total (questions 2, 4, and 6) was below nine, then you might be high on a personality trait that social scientists call right-wing authoritarianism (RWA).33 RWA taps into people’s desire for order, reverence for strong “legitimate” authority, affinity for traditional values, and belief that there is a right and a wrong way to live, with the “right” way being the old-fashioned way. They subscribe to these beliefs to combat feelings of fear, uncertainty, or lack of control.
When confronted by fear and chaos, some people tend to get behind a “strong” leader who promises to crush evil, return to traditional values, and restore order. Decades of research have shown that authoritarians—people who score high on RWA—are more likely to support leaders who emphasize security and structure, as well as impose the rule of law. Some of these leaders are demagogues, who thrive on fear and are most likely to emerge under conditions that produce fear, such as economic and/or cultural uncertainty. Their tyrannical social contract boils down to Make me all-powerful and I will keep you safe and bring society back to its former glory. The problem with this arrangement is that it leaves little room for diversity or dissent, as any departure from the very straight and narrow path is not tolerated.
Authoritarianism was first investigated as an explanation for the rise of fascism and anti-Semitism in Europe in the 1930s, and one of the original authoritarianism scales was a measure of fascist ideology.34 Because fascism promises order and stability, it is acceptable, even appealing, to authoritarians due to their need for psychological security. Studies have shown that people who score high on the authoritarianism scale are much more likely to believe that the world is a dangerous place, compared with those who have a low score.35 High scorers on the authoritarianism scale are quicker than low scorers to identify threatening words such as snake or cancer on a computer screen, but they are not quicker to identify nonthreatening words such as tree or telescope.36
At this point, you may be asking yourself what any of this has to do with racism, particularly because none of the RWA questions mentions Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, or even the word race itself. It might surprise you that over five decades of research in the social sciences have found RWA to be one of the most reliable predictors of racism. This robust relationship between RWA and racism is due to a couple of factors. First, authoritarians believe in the sanctity of “legitimate” authority and have a strong affinity for what they perceive as “normal” or mainstream; people outside of the mainstream are viewed with suspicion or contempt. Because White people are seen as normal in the United States and other Western countries, based on their numerical majority and cultural dominance, ethnic minorities are viewed by authoritarians as not just different but deviant—especially if they do not assimilate to mainstream norms. Authoritarians do not celebrate difference. As a result, RWA is strongly associated not only with racism but also with sexism, heterosexism, xenophobia, and other forms of bias.37 Second, authoritarians tend to be self-righteous, moralistic, and judgmental. A strong component of the ideology is the notion that there is only one “right” way to live, which is decided by traditional authority. Authoritarians endorse ostracism, punishment, and aggression (rather than inclusion or compassion) toward anyone who deviates from this narrow, righteous path.
Another big question that you may be asking yourself: What the heck do I do if I scored high on RWA? Am I forever doomed to be a racist? As I mentioned in Chapter 2, I see the world in terms of complicit and antiracist behaviors, and being an authoritarian doesn’t mean that you can’t become more antiracist. You absolutely can. The purpose of the questionnaire was not to knock anyone but rather to inform and empower. Raising one’s awareness about their psychological orientation toward the world and how it can inadvertently impact their social and political judgments and behaviors is an important first step. But it’s not by any means the last step. I have witnessed some of the biggest authoritarians turn into some of the biggest champions of racial justice. Once they become cognizant of how their fears and insecurities about the world produce a set of behaviors that create racial injustice, they stop feeling fearful and start becoming courageously committed to upholding their values around compassion and social justice.
If you scored high on the scale, and you’re bothered by it, sit with that discomfort, but don’t let it define you. Know that what really matters is what you do. And if you scored low on the scale, this does not automatically qualify you as someone who is antiracist. Most low scorers are also complicit, albeit in different ways from high scorers.
You may also be wondering where authoritarianism comes from. Researchers hypothesize that rigid, harsh parenting styles lead children to internalize the idea that there is a clear “right” and “wrong” way to do things. Interestingly, people’s RWA scores are highly correlated with their parents’ scores, and adults who remember their parents as being angry tend to have higher RWA scores.38 Such strict upbringing may teach children from an early age to both resent and revere authority, which leads to anger, anxiety, and insecurity on the one hand, while also producing a certain level of acceptance of, comfort with, and respect for rigid authority figures.
Although authoritarianism is correlated with political conservatism, and many studies have also found a correlation between political conservatism and racism,39 it would be a mistake to draw the simple conclusion that conservatives are racist and liberals are not. For one thing, there is wide variation in racial attitudes among conservatives, just as there is wide variation in racial attitudes among liberals. Some individuals have more racial bias than others no matter their political affiliation.40 The differences in levels of racial bias between liberals and conservatives is not always as marked as people might assume. Liberals, and even progressives, can sometimes demonstrate equal, or higher, evidence of racism than conservatives. Classic research on aversive racism, discussed in Chapter 2, found that compared with conservatives, liberals were quicker to hang up on a Black-sounding person asking for help. However, among people who stayed on the phone, liberals were more likely to help.41 Other research has found that Democratic political candidates use different words when addressing White audiences compared with audiences of color. Specifically, liberal politicians were more likely to “dumb down” their speech when talking to audiences of racial minorities compared with Whites. However, Republican politicians tended to use the same caliber of speech with both White and non-White audiences.42 This finding also held true for nonpoliticians. Liberals used simpler language than did conservatives when interacting with a Black compared with a White partner.
As someone who has worked in both highly liberal and highly conservative work spaces, I can confirm that racism occurs in each of them. And I’ve observed some of the most egregious transgressions from die-hard White progressives. Moreover, social scientific research reveals that activities such as voting for Obama, volunteering for the Peace Corps, or dating/marrying interracially can all but convince liberals that they are immune to racism, which ironically licenses them to be even more bold in their racial transgressions.
Even in the crucible of enlightenment and progressive liberalism—academia—racism can be found. Researchers sent out identical meeting requests to over 6,500 professors from dozens of disciplines across hundreds of colleges and universities. The meeting requests ostensibly came from interested students, asking to discuss research opportunities and possible doctoral work. The researchers varied the names of the interested students to sound White or non-White and female or male. They found that professors were significantly more responsive to requests coming from White male students than requests from women or people of color.43
One reason that both liberals and conservatives discriminate is that they are both exposed to the same cultural stereotypes. Moreover, both liberals and conservatives can suffer damage to their identity or their self-esteem—which can then lead to higher levels of racism. For instance, a White woman who experiences sexism from White men may respond by exhibiting racist attitudes toward ethnic minorities.44 Evidence suggests that when our feelings of worth are diminished, we find solace in diminishing someone else’s.45 But when we feel good about ourselves, racism is less likely to emerge. The same researchers showed that when White women’s resilience and values were affirmed prior to their experiencing sexism, they did not show more racism.
Similarly, in a study conducted by Steve Fein and Steven Spencer, White participants seized on the opportunity to denigrate an ethnic out-group member after they thought they failed a test, but not when they thought they passed the test or when their self-worth was affirmed prior to being told that they failed the test.46 Another study by Lisa Sinclair and Ziva Kunda found that when Whites’ sense of competence was threatened by being given negative feedback by a Black professor, they dismissed the professor as “Black” and activated negative racial stereotypes related to incompetence to discredit both the professor and the feedback.47 A student who received negative feedback might think: “Yeah, that Black professor didn’t like my paper on Hemingway because she wouldn’t know good writing if it bit her on the nose. Plus, I bet she doesn’t know anything about Hemingway. She’s probably only read Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. I’m sure that they gave her a PhD to avoid a discrimination lawsuit.” On the other hand, positive feedback by a Black professor activated positive stereotypes and the tendency to think of this person as a “professor” rather than as “Black.” A student who received positive feedback might think: “Cool, my Black professor loved my paper on Hemingway. She’s one of the world’s top experts on twentieth-century American literature and has done some pretty amazing research. I feel honored to have someone of that stature think so highly of my paper!” These wild pendulum swings in evaluations of Black professionals reveal just how complicated racism can be. They also demonstrate that racism often has more to do with psychological issues of the person doing the judging than with any fault of the person being judged. This is an important point for both managers and ordinary people to keep in mind before they jump to conclusions about the validity of their evaluations of others.
Taken together, these studies show that a sense of failure can trigger the expression of racism. And there are always going to be people who experience failure. This gets us back to the White farmer in Mississippi Burning, and to the fellas. People who feel vulnerable or “less than” are poised to fall into all sorts of racism traps.
Fortunately, there are ways to break the cycle. One is to make people aware of this phenomenon. It may not consciously occur to people that their feelings about their own shortcomings are directly tied to their political leanings and racial evaluations of other people. Another path to intervention when threat is involved is to make people feel more secure about themselves through a process called self-affirmation. I will elaborate on these and many other strategies in later chapters. What is critically important for now is to understand—to really understand—that the heart of racism is power and the soul of racism is fear, with the heart striving to protect the soul. This fear is not mortal fear, what one might experience when facing a lion or shark, but psychological fear grounded in feelings of inadequacy, uncertainty, failure, and insignificance. Power has a palliative effect on fear. It does nothing to cure the underlying insecurities caused by fear, but it sure does make people feel better about themselves by providing the illusion of invulnerability.
A ton of research over the past forty years has taught us that the root causes of racism are historical contingencies, institutional structures, and social policies. These social factors or hierarchical structures work together with the dominant group’s psychological needs, desires, and motives. But difficult as this is, the real picture is even trickier, because these systemic structures and psychological threats are not the only factors that breed racism. Evidence has accumulated over the last several decades to reveal that human intergroup bias is wired into our DNA, figuratively speaking, and to get the complete picture of racism we have to dig deeper into our basic psychology and evolution.