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

Anger and Racial Politics examines the place of emotion in the scheme of politics and political preferences.

Antoine J. Banks (Author)

9781107629271, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 April 2016

220 pages, 45 b/w illus. 18 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.33 kg

'Anger and Racial Politics is a contribution of strikingly original research that successfully comes to grips with the role of race in contemporary American politics.' Shanto Iyengar, Stanford University, California

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. 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, 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.

Introduction
1. A theory of anger and contemporary white racial attitudes
2. The emotional foundation of white racial attitudes
3. The emotional content in racialized campaign ads primes white racial attitudes
4. The public's anger: racial polarization and opinions toward health care reform
5. The Tea Party's angry rhetoric and the 2010 midterm elections
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], Sociology [JHB]