Anger and Racial Politics: The Emotional Foundation of Racial Attitudes in America

Politicians, scholars, and pundits often disagree about whether race has been injected into a political campaign or policy debate. Some have suspected that race sometimes enters into politics even when political elites avoid using racial cues or racially coded language. Anger and Racial Politics provides a theoretical framework for understanding the emotional conditions under which this effect might happen. Antoine J. Banks asserts that making whites angry – no matter the basis for their anger – will make ideas about race more salient to them. He argues that anger, and not fear or other negative emotions, provides the foundation upon which contemporary white racial attitudes are structured. Drawing on a multi-method approach – lab and Internet survey experiments and nationally representative surveys – he demonstrates that anger plays an important role in enhancing the impact of race on whites' preferences for putting an end to affirmative action, repealing health care reform, hanging the confederate flag high, and voting for Tea Party-backed candidates.

Antoine J. Banks is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. Banks earned a PhD in Political Science at the University of Michigan in 2009 and a BA in Political Science and African American Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York. Banks specializes in American politics, with a focus on race and ethnic politics, political psychology, public opinion, and voting behavior. His current research interests center on two issues: emotion's importance in triggering the political impact of racial attitudes and emotions as a motivator for political action. His articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Behavior, and Political Psychology.