ABSTRACT
The latter half of the 20th century has witnessed dramatic legislative changes (e.g., the 1954 Supreme Court ruling on school desegregation and the Civil Rights Laws of the early 1960s), which made overt discrimination based on race illegal. These laws altered the social and political landscape in fundamental ways and began to erode traditional racist norms. These changes have culminated in a rather pervasive norm that discourages overt expressions of prejudice in the United States (Blanchard, Lily, & Vaughn, 1991; Monteith, Deneen, & Tooman, 1996; Plant & Devine, 1998). In response, social scientists quickly became interested in documenting such changes and developing conceptual analyses to understand their impact.
