… Well before the election of the first black president in 2008, the condemnation of direct and open expressions of racism had become a social norm. While the fading acceptability of openly racist attitudes is to be celebrated, it clearly does not mean that race no longer matters or that racial tensions and anxieties have disappeared. …
For civil-rights activists, the challenge is that the open racism of the past may transmute into what Ta-Nehisi Coates describes as an “elegant racism” that is less visible and that “disguises itself in the national vocabulary, avoids epithets and didacticism.” For researchers, journalists, and policymakers, the new challenge is that this positive social norm may make the public less willing to speak openly and candidly about race, a problem social scientists call “social-desirability bias.” CONT.
Robert P. Jones (PRRI), The Atlantic