ABSTRACT
This chapter examines whether or not higher education mitigates the power of racial antagonism over whites' racial policy preferences in favour of non-racial predispositions. It argues that as a political force, symbolic racism has largely displaced the older forms of racial attitude. The symbolic politics argument would suggest that all four forms of anti-black racism draw in part on the residues of a common negative socialization about African Americans. Symbolic racism and the three older indicators of anti-black racism focus only on whites' derogation of the out-group. The chapter suggests that the conventional socialization of American whites has inculcated negative attitudes toward African Americans without much explicit focus on whiteness or celebration of it. It describes as "equal opportunity," "federal assistance," and "affirmative action." The chapter also examines evaluations of the most prominent candidates in the 1986 and 1992 National Election Studies.
