Polarized Opinions on Racial Progress and Inequality: Measurement and Application to Affirmative Action Preferences

This study presents new measures of opinion about progress toward racial equality and provides a multifaceted rationale for preferring the new measures to the old ones. To reduce several sources of measurement error and improve analytic bite by breaking progress into its constituent elements, surveys should ask about past, present, and ideal conditions, not progress. These questions reveal racially polarized opinions: Black and White Americans agree on the goal of equality and agree that conditions were worse in the past, but Blacks think conditions were much worse than Whites do. They especially differ in opinions on current conditions and thus in how much change is required to achieve the goal of equality. Blacks see much more current inequality than Whites do. These opinions help explain preferences for affirmative action (AA). Contrary to previously published findings, reactions to AA do not depend on opinions on progress but depend strongly on something related but distinct: how much current racial conditions differ from the ideal. Implications for theories of policy preferences, racial attitudes, progress, and equality are discussed.