The January 6 th insurrection and its aftermath of obfuscation and denial were ostensibly racialized events. Under the guise of election fraud, white supremacists, white nationalists, and paramilitary groups attempted to overthrow established democratic procedures to retain a president who stoked racial antagonisms and racial divisions. African Americans, like many American citizens, watched in fear, anxiety, and foreboding as the groups most committed to their repression violently attacked and ransacked the Capitol. We examine the extent to which the January 6 th insurrection and its aftermath of denial and obfuscation influence African Americans’ racial resentment. Our results show how the racialized January 6 th events were connected to heightened African American racial resentment. The most compelling result confirms that African Americans’ racial resentment stems from beliefs about justice and fairness.

Our analysis of data from a nationally representative survey of adults shows that beliefs in whether the January 6th insurrection was justifiable and whether it required investigation through the creation of the U.S. House Select Committee are inexorably steeped in affective partisanship and racial resentment. It is easy to attribute the insurrection to partisan machinations, but evidence shows that racial resentment is the dominant explanation: this includes the fact that allegations of election fraud were centered on districts with large African American and Latino populations; that many of the insurrectionists were white nationalists, racists, and members of radical right-wing groups; and that a large proportion of the electorate had voted to retain a president who fueled whites’ sense of victimization by African Americans and other minorities. We argue that reactions to the legitimacy of the January 6th insurrection have become an example of how racial resentment fuels affective partisanship.

Racial resentment makes certain campaign appeals, like President Trump's Make America Great Again, more appealing. While many American citizens would like to see their country aspire to greatness, references to the past using "again" activate sentiments about the threat to Whites' status. Because "again" references a previous era and that individuals' perceptions of the past are likely shaped by race, African Americans' and Whites' interpretations of the slogan are expected to differ dramatically. This expectation stems from the notion that African Americans' recollection of the past likely reflects a more perilous era in which racial prejudice and discrimination were more pervasive. In contrast, Whites' recollection of the past likely reflects an era in which they were more dominant and benefitted more from the status quo or when people knew their place and were reluctant to challenge it. Exploring the extent to which racial resentment makes one open to campaign appeals offers important insight into how seemingly benign and ostensibly non-racial expressions (or a single word) can be exploited. The 2016 presidential election will be remembered as one of the most racially polarizing elections, and the Make America Great Again slogan was its call to arms for President Trump.

Abstract Racial reckoning in response to racial injustice has compelled individuals, organizations, and institutions to acknowledge and adopt policies that actively challenge racial injustice. A central tenet of this era of reckoning is that it is no longer acceptable to ignore racist behaviors and expressions. To the extent that active opposition to racial prejudice is an effective strategy for individuals to pursue, we examine individual inclinations to act on matters of racial prejudice. We argue that in spite of best intentions, the motivation to act against racism, what we call “antiracism action orientation,” can be disrupted by system-justifying beliefs that raise questions about deservingness, legitimize the status quo, and therefore defend inaction. Survey data from the 2020 Congressional Election Study show that antiracism action orientation is strongest among African Americans, and those with more positive affect toward racial-ethnic minorities, and supporters of change. Among Whites, racial resentment dominates the motivations for antiracism to the point that typical political allies like Democrats, liberals, and those who acknowledge White privilege reduce their antiracism action orientation to lower levels than Republicans, conservatives, and deniers of White privilege. We conclude that most Americans, but especially Whites, have a high bar for change, making racism an ongoing American dilemma because of both racial attitudes and the costs of change.

Racial reckoning in response to racial injustice has compelled individuals, organizations, and institutions to acknowledge and adopt policies that actively challenge racial injustice. A central tenet of this era of reckoning is that it is no longer acceptable to ignore racist behaviors and expressions. To the extent that active opposition to racial prejudice is an effective strategy for individuals to pursue, we examine individual inclinations to act on matters of racial prejudice. We argue that in spite of best intentions, the motivation to act against racism, what we call “antiracism action orientation,” can be disrupted by system-justifying beliefs that raise questions about deservingness, legit-imize the status quo, and therefore defend inaction. Survey data from the 2020 Congressional Election Study show that antiracism action orientation is strongest among African Americans, and those with more positive affect toward racial-ethnic minorities, and supporters of change. Among Whites, racial resentment dominates the motivations for antiracism to the point that typical political allies like Democrats, liberals, and those who acknowledge White privilege reduce their anti-racism action orientation to lower levels than Republicans, conserva-tives, and deniers of White privilege. We conclude that most Americans, but especially Whites, have a high bar for change, making racism an ongoing American dilemma because of both racial attitudes and the costs of change.

Journal for the Scientific Study of ReligionVolume 57, Issue 2 p. 409-410 Book Review AUTHENTICALLY BLACK AND TRULY CATHOLIC: THE RISE OF BLACK CATHOLICISM IN THE GREAT MIGRATION. By Matthew J. Cressler. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2017. xiii + 288 pp., $30.00 paper. DARREN DAVIS, DARREN DAVIS University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IndianaSearch for more papers by this author DARREN DAVIS, DARREN DAVIS University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IndianaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 06 August 2018 https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12514Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume57, Issue2June 2018Pages 409-410 RelatedInformation

In this research, we show that positive and negative framings of the economy motivated racial resentments and consonant judgments among Whites about President Obama's responsibility for the economy. Using experimental data collected in the 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), we find that Whites attributed more responsibility to Obama under negative economic conditions (i.e., blame) than positive economic conditions (i.e., credit). Partisanship influenced both patterns, but racial resentment matters only among Democrats and Independents, not Republicans. We also compared President Obama to governors, and found that Whites attributed equal responsibility to the President and governors for negative economic conditions, but gave more credit to governors than Obama for positive conditions. Whites also gave governors more credit for state improvements than they gave Obama for national ones. Our findings highlight the likely inescapability of racial biases regardless of positive information or shared political identity.

The policies of Republican Governor Scott Walker have come to symbolize a resurgent assault on the public sector, and on public employee unions in particular, by the Republican Party. The fact that this is happening in Wisconsin, the state that in the last century was considered the “laboratory of Progressivism,” makes the politics surrounding these policies all the more compelling. In The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker , Katherine J. Cramer analyzes the “politics of resentment” surrounding these developments. Employing an ethnographic “method of listening,” Cramer furnishes thick description of the political language employed by rural Wisconsinites, and proceeds to develop an interpretive theory of “political resentment” that illuminates the reasons why lower-class citizens so strongly oppose public policies seeking to offset social and economic inequality. The book is important methodologically and politically. We have thus invited a range of social and political scientists to comment on the book as a work of political science and as a diagnosis of the current political moment.

In the wake of the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, political observers were quick to assert that Barack Obama won the African American vote because he was Black, and more generally, that African Americans were motivated by race above all other considerations. As this racial reductionist stereotype has the potential to trivialize African Americans' voting behavior and diminish the significance of the election of Barack Obama, this research examined how much support exists for the stereotype. We also examined whether a racial double standard motivates the application of this stereotype, and if so, the degree to which it is grounded in a broader antipathy toward Blacks. Several experiments embedded in two large national public opinion surveys show that there is indeed a racial double standard in the application of the racial reductionist stereotype; moreover, the attribution is connected to racial resentment.