How Social Dominance Orientation Accounts for Differences Among Black Americans’ Views of Institutional Racism
According to the Pew Research Center, most Black American adults believe that little race relations progress has been made in their country.[i] In the same poll, 56% of white American respondents agreed that being born white offers an advantage in one’s ability to get ahead in life. In comparison, sixty-nine percent (69%) of black people agreed with the same statement. Notice that there isn’t one hundred percent agreement among black people about whether or not being white American contributes to substantially greater human capital. About one in three thinks otherwise.
Black South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott would likely be among those who do not perceive that being white offers an unfair advantage. He stated that “to suggest that there aren’t racial challenges [in the United States due to the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery] and patterns is for someone to be blind. So, we cannot deny the truth.”[ii] Scott also admits that he has been stopped walking into the [United States] Capital “even with my Senate pin on. Because I’m African American, they didn’t believe my pin was mine.” “I regret it”, he said. “But I’m not going to focus my attention in the midst of this challenge on one individual who got it wrong.”
Scott is conservative. It is not surprising that he does not believe the United States is fraught with institutional racism even after firsthand experience with unfair treatment solely based on his race. He does believe that some Americans engage in racist acts, but their actions are isolated incidents. One rationale he gives for making the distinction is that black people are no longer constitutionally relegated to two thirds of a person status. Scott’s belief that institutional racism is a myth mirrors white conservative ideology but places him among a minority of black Americans. Why do some black people fail to see the white privilege that most of the respondents, including whites, view as obvious?
Social dominance orientation theory (SDO) helps us make sense of the differences between conservative and liberal views on different social issues.[iii] SDO is a measure of the degree to which an individual supports institutional hierarchy. People who are high in SDO assume that white people enjoy more socioeconomic, political, and power status because they are smarter and work harder than the other groups. The result is that they contribute more to society, and thus are more deserving. The fact that police gives them more deference is also an understandable benefit from this perspective.
People low in social dominance orientation view the social hierarchy as contrived and rigged to maintain that status quo. That comes with the price of creating barriers for the less fortunate in their efforts to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Institutionalized inequity provides the less fortunate with bootstraps but make it very difficult to get access to the boots. Workplace policies and practices that focus on hiring for cultural diversity without creating a culture in which they can fully realize their potential reproduces the hierarchy that the leadership talks about changing. Their words are not backed by bold actions needed to affect change.
White Americans and Black Americans vary in terms of social dominance orientation. Not surprisingly, white males tend to be high in SDO, which basically means that they view the hierarchy between men and women, blacks and whites, immigrants and Americans, etc. as justified and natural. Efforts to promote a level playing field such as affirmative action or more restrictions on policing practices are considered unnecessary and ill-advised. Such actions merely undermine the “natural order” of things. Not surprisingly police, who are majority white in numbers, tend to be high in SDO.
Women and people of color tend to be low in SDO. They are more likely to appreciate efforts to undermine the hierarchy when it unjustly harms individuals’ efforts to reduce inequity and unfairness. The results from SDO research also indicate that the white women and people of color who tend to be high in social dominance orientation are also likely to be affluent and conservative. Although rare, high SDO can be found among lower class and poor people of color (i.e., they believe that it is justified that they and others like them deserve to be at the bottom of the social, economic, and political hierarchy).
SDO is correlated with support of increased policing and military spending, classism, racism, and sexism. This is not surprising because each item in the list reflects the power relations between those who are at the top and those who are at the bottom of the hierarchy. Under ideal circumstances, the high and low SDO groups cancel each other out in the dominance-equality power dynamics. Protests and rioting in response to police brutality in the black community tend to lead to policy change and focus on the needs of the black community. Policy changes and the short-term attention are often perceived as insufficient for change among the low SDOs. Police play an important role in controlling the amount of social unrest. They tend to perceive the social hierarchy as natural and justified, which makes it difficult for low SDOs to view them as anything other than the armed forces of the privileged class. That may be one reason police brutality incidents lead to protests.
There is a way out of the community policing quagmire. Hiring a police force that is balanced in SDO can increase better community policing and reduce the likelihood that police actions will trigger unrest. More officers will likely intervene when an officer gets out of control in the heat of the moment to deescalate situations before they bring about regretful outcomes.
Black and white Americans do not share similar views of the world. This is both a function of the where each group falls on the social, political, and economic hierarchies, and differences in perceptions of the fairness of those hierarchies. Leaders of organizations, managers of diverse teams, and politicians can benefit from developing practices that attenuate social dominance. Research indicates that the bottom line and inclusion payoffs make it worth it.
[i] Horowitz, J., Brown, A., & Cox, K. (2019). Race in America 2019: Public has negative views of the country’s racial progress; more than half say Trump has made race relations worse. https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/04/09/race-in-america-2019/
[ii] Fitzgerald, S. (2020). Sen. Tim Scott: ‘ We Cannot Deny the Truth’ of Systemic Racism. Newsmax (June 17). https://www.newsmax.com/politics/tim-scott-racism-floyd-riots/2020/06/01/id/969998/
[iii] James Sidanius (1991). Social dominance orientation.
About the Author
Billy Vaughn PhD is a cultural cognitive psychologist. He specializes in inclusion, equity and belonging consulting, training, strategic initiatives, and instructional design. He founded DTUI.com and is editor of Diversity Officer Magazine. The certified diversity professional credentialing is his creation, which is delivered through The Diversity Executive Leadership Academy.