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Prejudice and Openness to the Other: Investigating Responses to Testimonies of Race-Based Suffering

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Abstract

The present study employed a variety of existing measures to assess openness to the other in the ecologically valid context of listening to real-life testimonies of race-based suffering. Variation in system threat, and individual differences in two measures of prejudice—right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO)—were all investigated for their impact on respondent openness. Among 36 student volunteers, it was found that a woman’s testimony featuring a high degree of system threat engendered less openness to the other among participants high in SDO than less threatening testimony offered by a man. Additionally, participant levels of RWA explained a significant amount of variance in their openness to the other across both male and female testimonies. This study quantitatively confirms that testimonies of race-based suffering—utterances that have great potential to interrupt master narratives and invite deep learning—are likely to be met with a complex and interactive pattern of resistance that must be more fully understood.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication Studies, California State University, Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA, 90840-2407, USA

    Aaron Castelán Cargile

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Appendix

Appendix

Male Testimony

On one particular day I remember I was in a suburban neighborhood, Marin, mater of fact. And I went into a store. I needed a pair of shoes. Um, I had just opened up an account and had got my credit card—credit good and everything like that. Um, as I walked into the store, uh, I was immediately followed by security. Uh, but first let me just say that I believe I was the only black person in that store at that time (laugh). But however, moving’ right along, as I walked through the store to the shoe department, I was followed. Uh, I got my shoes, found the shoes that fitted me. I went to the counter. As I pulled out my credit card to pay for the shoes, I was told to wait while three other people who happened to be Caucasian were, uh, rang up and exited the store. As I came to the counter, I was asked questions again with having the proper ID. Finally, I was rang up. As I exited the store, with, I had my book bag on ‘cuz I had just came from school, so I had my laptop on my back. As I exited the store, I was told, uh, to step to the side. When I asked why, I was told that, uh, black people steal. After they searched my bag, uh, in the course of them searching my bag, he said the reason why that it took you so long was because black people don’t have credit. How did I feel? I felt, uh, discriminated against. Uh, I felt, uh, privilege was floating around in the air, entitlement issues were floating around in the air and, uh, I somehow felt a something of unworthiness.

Female Testimony

This is the seventh anniversary of Katrina. And as far as I’m concerned, in modern history, that is the most telling and the greatest incident of racial profiling in the history of this country—modern history! After the storm passed, AFTER the storm passed, we went through hell in New Orleans—HELL. Absolute, unnecessary, HELL. The order of evacuation was tourists, white folks in New Orleans, any white folks that wanted to get out of the suburbs, the ANIMALS in the zoo, the ANIMALS in the aquarium—and they racially profiled us and left us to fend. OK? But when people got out, were brought out, they were told to leave EVERYTHING, don’t take ANYTHING. They wouldn’t ALLOW us to bring food or water. “There will be provisions where we take you”. And when they took folks to the Superdome and the convention center, there was NOTHING. And the very police who deal with Mardi Gras, who deal with, uh, Superbowl and all the rest, right? They deal with drunken crowds—millions of people. They couldn’t do anything to maintain order. They only thing they did was point guns on people to keep them from comin’ OUT to go get provisions. So don’t tell me about RACIAL profiling.

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Cargile, A.C. Prejudice and Openness to the Other: Investigating Responses to Testimonies of Race-Based Suffering. Race Soc Probl 7, 198–212 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-015-9150-9

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