Finding needles in the haystack: identifying white racial progressives in a colorblind society

Expanding on Eduardo Bonilla-Silva's work on white racial progressives in Racism without Racists {2003), this work examines white racial progressives using the 2000 General Social Survey because of its inclusion of a module that examines racial interaction that contains variables that can be used as proxy measures of white racial progressives. I employ multiple regression analyses of whites' attitudes about African-Americans that reflect Black acceptance as measured by their acceptance of racial intermarriage. Following previous research (Bobo 2000} the model assesses racial attitudes among whites that serve to distinguish white racial progressives that favor interracial Black-white marriage. My findings show that political liberalness, residence outside of the southern states, a general feeling of closeness to Black people, and support of Affirmative Action policy predicts positive attitudes toward Black-white interracial marriage. The paper ends by suggesting that future researchers employ a more comprehensive modeling of white racial progressiveness that reflects the level of interaction with Black people. Keywords: race, colorblind racism, whiteness studies, racial progressivity