Denial of racism and the Trump presidency

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-07-2017-0155
• Date: 14 February 2018
• Pages: 14-30
• Published date: 14 February 2018
• Author: Alison M. Konrad
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity, equality, inclusion

Denial of racism and the

Trump presidency

Alison M. Konrad

Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to document the racist undertones of Donald Trump’s Presidential

campaign rhetoric and draw implications regarding its impact on equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Most contemporary individuals reject explicitly racist beliefs and strive to present themselves as having

egalitarian attitudes toward other races and ethnicities. However, commonly held implicit biases toward

historically marginalized racioethnic groups drive nega tive effect that is often unconscious and

unacknowledged. Inconsistency between the conscious and unconscious aspects of contemporary racism

generates a population of individuals who are uncomfortable with their attitudes, creating an opening for

politicians willing to leverage racist rhetoric and gain support by resolving this inconsistency.

Design/methodology/approach –This paper applies social psychological theory and research to address

the questions of what attracts otherwise non-racist individuals to racist-tinged rhetoric. The paper also

provides theory-based interventions for reducing the attractiveness and impact of racist political campaigns.

Findings –Supporters of racist politicians resolve the conflict between their negative feelings toward

racioethnic minorities and their espoused anti-racist views by distancing themselves from racist rhetorical

content in three ways: by denying that racist statements or actions occurred, denying that the statements or

actions are racist, and/or by denying responsibility for racism and its effects. These techniques provide

supporters with validation from an authority that they can express their negative affect toward out-groups

and still consider themselves to be good people and not racists.

Practical implications –Distancing from racism has allowed contemporary American extremists to

reframe themselves as victims of closed-minded progressives seeking to elevate undeserving and/or

dangerous out-groups at the in-group’s expense. Effective anti-racism techniques are needed to counter

implicit biases in order to limit the attractiveness of extremist views. Implicit biases can be effectively reduced

through training in counter-stereotypic imaging, stereotype replacement, and structured inter-group

interaction. Effectively countering denial of the facts involves affirming the audience’s belief system while

building skepticism toward the sources of misinformation.

Social implications –While countering racist politicians requires commitment, these efforts are essential

for protecting the identity of the USA as a society striving toward equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Originality/value –By articulating the social psychological principles underpinning racist-tinged

populist rhetoric, this paper explains the attractiveness of racist statements by politicians, which tends to be

under-estimated.

Keywords Racial discrimination, Aversive racism, Implicit bias, Populism, Symbolic racism,

System justification

Paper type General review

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best […] They’re sending people that have

lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us (sic). They’re bringing drugs. They’re

bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people […]It’s coming from more

than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming –probably –from

the Middle East (Donald Trump, Presidential Announcement Speech, June 16, 2015).

Donald Trump’s opening salvo to his presidential campaign was to spotlight immigrants

from Mexico, Latin America, and the Middle East as a critical danger to the US society

(TIME Staff, 2015). By highlighting marginalized identity groups as the key contributors to

social and economic woes, President Trump triggered a volatile and hostile dynamic in the

American public that fulfills the definition of racism. As such, racism undergirded

Candidate Trump’s campaign rhetoric from the beginning. Given that most Americans

eschew racism and vigorously reject the “racist”label (Norton et al., 2006), the election of

President Trump raises troubling questions regarding the rationale for promulgating

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 37 No. 1, 2018

pp. 14-30

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-07-2017-0155

Received 10 August 2017

Revised 8 October 2017

Accepted 13 October 2017

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

14

EDI

37,1

racist-tinged rhetoric in a contemporary US election as well as the impact of racist political

rhetoric on the US society.

Research has shown that observing unpunished racist acts increases the likelihood of

espousing derogatory racist beliefs (Sullivan et al., 2016). Not only did Candidate Trump’s

racist rhetoric go unpunished, he was elected the US President on the basis of his racist

statements and policies, at least in part (Wood, 2017). And as President, Donald Trump has

continued to promulgate racist-tinged rhetoric, for instance, encouraging police brutality

against Latinos (Merica, 2017). When racist statements by leaders go unpunished, racist

sentiments are encouraged. Racist rhetoric is also divisive: members of historically

marginalized groups, who observe a disrespectful interaction between a member of their

own group and a predominant group authority figure, feel greater social distance from the

predominant group as a result (Davies and Sivasubramaniam, 2016).

The purpose of this paper is to document the racist undertones of Donald Trump’s

presidential campaign rhetoric and draw implications regarding his impact on equality,

diversity, and inclusion in the US society. The paper is organized as follows. First, I provide

standard definitions of race, racioethnic groups, and racism. Next, I discuss the dynamic of

distancing oneself from racism as a means of protecting a positive self-concept utilized by

individuals who support candidates promulgating racist speech. Then, I share research

testing various methods for overcoming racism in the face of denials and draw conclusions

for countering racist political tactics.

Race, racioethnic groups, and racism

Any discussion of a topic as emotionally charged as racism requires grounding in clear

definitions. In this section, I provide definitions for the concepts of race, racioethnic groups,

and racism based on the predominant understanding shared among contemporary scholars.

These definitions provide the foundation for characterizing Donald Trump’s presidential

campaign rhetoric as racist.

Race

Scientists in the fields of biology, epidemiology, and genetics argue that the terms “race”and

“ethnicity”have no clear scientific meaning (Collins, 2004) and that geographic ancestry is a

more accurate representation of an individual’s genomic heritage (Yudell et al., 2016). Recent

research indicates that Americans in the same self-identified racioethnic categories show

broad variation in geographic ancestry, with non-Hispanic white individuals ranging from

Northern Europe to Southern Europe and the Middle East, and Latinos showing ancestry

from all of the major continents (Banda et al., 2015). Genetically, Sub-Saharan Africans

include all other human population groups, and many African sub-populations showing

greater similarity to Europeans than they do to each other (Maglo et al., 2016). Furthermore,

continental clustering explains less than 2 percent of human genetic variation, indicating

that geographic ancestry holds limited explanatory value regarding an individual’s

biological heritage (Maglo et al., 2016). As such, race and ethnicity are best understood as

socially constructed concepts based upon a history of interaction between cultural identity

groups (Cox, 2004).

Racioethnic groups

Although race and ethnicity have little meaning genetically, they have many implications

for identity and social interaction (Avery et al., 2009; Chrobot-Mason et al., 2013;

Deitch et al., 2003; Jones et al., 2016). Cox (2004) argued in favor of the term “racioethnici ty”

for identifying both race and ethnic groups in order to avoid implications that some

socially constructed identity groups are biologically distinct “races”while others are

15

Denial of

racism and

the Trump

presidency