Does Laissez‑Faire Racism Differ from Symbolic Racism?
We are not the first or only analysts to attempt to conceptualize the changing character of whites’ attitudes toward blacks. One important line of research is that concerning symbolic racism. Although defined and I ultimately measured in a variety of ways, the concept of symbolic racism proposes that a new form of antiblack prejudice has arisen in the United States. It is said to involve a blend of early learned social values, such as the Protestant ethic and antiblack fears and apprehensions. In a context where segregationist and biological racism are less in evidence, according to the symbolic racism researchers, it is this modem symbolic racism that plays a more formidable role (Sears & Kinder 1971; McConahay & Hough 1976). Our concept of laissez‑faire racism differs in two critical respects from lie theory of symbolic racism as proposed by David Sears and colleagues (Kinder & Sears 1981). First, the theory of laissez‑faire racism is explicitly based in a historical analysis of the
