Bobo, L., Kluegel, J. R., & Smith, R. A. (1997). Laissez-faire racism: The crystallization of a kinder, gentler, antiblack ideology. In S. A. Tuch & J. K. Martin (Eds.), Racial attitudes in the 1990s: Continuity and change (pp.15–42). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Studies of racial attitudes in the U.S. present a difficult puzzle. On the one hand, several recent studies point to the steadily improving racial attitudes of whites toward African Americans (Steeh and Schuman 1992; Firebaugh and Davis 1988). These attitudinal trends are reinforced by many more tangible indicators, most notably the size, relative security, and potentially growing influence of the black middle class (Dawson 1994; Landry 1987). On the other hand, a number of social policies put forward to improve the status of African Americans and other minorities, such as affirmative action, are often contested if not ubiquitously unpopular (Bobo and Smith 1994; Kluegel and Smith 1986). Again, signs of negative racial attitudes are borne out by a number of tangible indicators such as the burgeoning evidence of racial discrimination experienced by blacks almost irrespective of social class background (Bobo and Suh 1995; Kirschenman and Neckerman 1991; Feagin and Sikes 1994; Braddock and McPartland 1986; Waldinger and Bailey 1991; Zweigenhaft and Domhoff 1991).