Encounters Between Blacks and White Liberals: The Collision of Stereotypes

Interracial communication and cooperation are impaired by a generally high level of distrust on the part of blacks toward white liberals. The idea that the typical white liberal is a hypocritical, sub-rosa racist is widely held and appears supported by laboratory research. Such research is discussed and its findings reinterpreted from a symbolic interactionist and situationalist point of view. The position is developed that much of interaction dynamics between blacks and liberal whites is situationally determined. Such interaction is characterized by strong situationally specific cues, both internal (e.g., anger, fear, guilt), and external (e.g., color of other). These in conjunction with behavioral demand factors, emanating from cultural myths which set up expectations for specific behavior patterns from self and other in such encounters, operate to elicit stereotypical behavior from blacks and whites as interracial interactants. From the perspective developed, a reconceptualization of interracial interaction is presented, and its implications discussed.