Racism Term Analysis

Whereas white conservative Louisianans like Mike Schaff generally “defined as racist a person who used the ‘N’ word or who ‘hates’ blacks,” Hochschild sticks to a sociological concept of racism as “the belief in a natural hierarchy that places blacks at the bottom, and the tendency of whites to judge their own worth by distance from that bottom.” This difference is crucial to understanding conservative Louisianans’belief that they are not racist, even though many mix their distaste for government welfare with horribly exaggerated and generalized media stereotypes about black Americans. In general, Hochschild says, the white people she met had little to do with or say about black Louisianans, but “spoke freely” about their feelings on Muslims and Mexicans. Many of the people Hochschild met in Louisiana thought of systemic racism as a thing of the past and saw no issue with casting their ballots for Donald Trump.