Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum
Game That They Are Now Losing
Michael I. Norton1 and Samuel R. Sommers2
1
Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, and 2
Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA
Abstract
Although some have heralded recent political and cultural developments as signaling the arrival of a postracial era in America,
several legal and social controversies regarding ‘‘reverse racism’’ highlight Whites’ increasing concern about anti-White bias.
We show that this emerging belief reflects Whites’ view of racism as a zero-sum game, such that decreases in perceived bias
against Blacks over the past six decades are associated with increases in perceived bias against Whites—a relationship not
observed in Blacks’ perceptions. Moreover, these changes in Whites’ conceptions of racism are extreme enough that Whites have
now come to view anti-White bias as a bigger societal problem than anti-Black bias.
http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/sommerslab/documents/raceInterNortonSommers2011.pdf