Abstract
In recent years, several high-profile individuals were sanctioned (e.g., fired) when photos of them dressed in blackface surfaced. Yet, every weekend during sports seasons, fans dress in redface to support teams with Native mascots. Given the observed discrepancy, five studies examined whether and why the perceived acceptability of these two racialized representations differs. Across varying methods and designs, we found that redface was perceived as more acceptable than blackface. The differential acceptability was explained by the extent to which people believe that Native (vs. Black) Peoples: 1) largely do not exist within contemporary social contexts (i.e., social erasure) and 2) experience less racism. The results suggest that eliminating racialized representations requires understanding the role that sociocultural factors play in sustaining discrimination and prejudice.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 698-709 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Social Psychological and Personality Science |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 2022 |
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: A National Academy of Sciences Ford predoctoral fellowship to Julisa J. Lopez, a National Institute on Aging (NIA) Aging and Development Training Grant (T32 AG0000030) to Arianne E. Eason, and a grant from the Raikes Foundation to Stephanie A. Fryberg supported work on this project.
Keywords
- Black Peoples
- Native Peoples
- racism minimization
- social erasure
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology
- Clinical Psychology