I went to a local production of the play Twelve Angry Men this past weekend. With its title and content as well as (in this staging) its all-white cast, I found myself thinking about a recent study from Michael Norton and Samuel Sommers (Harvard and Tufts, respectively) about white and black perceptions of racial bias and differential treatment. Given that their study has garnered a lot of discussion lately, I’d venture you’ve thought about it, too.

Based upon some experimental retrospective surveys, Norton and Sommers find (among other things) that white Americans believe that anti-white bias has increased dramatically since the 1950s, to the point that many whites now consider anti-white bias to be a greater social problem than bias against African Americans. (The original study appeared in Perspectives on Psychological Science 2011 6: 215)

On the face of it, as the study’s authors rightly surmise, these beliefs are absurd. African Americans continue to lag behind whites (and other racial-ethnic groups) in every domain that matters—educational attainment, income, poverty and wealth, health, encounters with the criminal justice system, etc. But the fact that these perceptions don’t accord with objective social patterns doesn’t make these beliefs any less real or potent.

One of my first reactions is: this actually isn’t a new phenomenon. White perceptions about “reverse discrimination” (a concept which emerged at least a generation ago in the backlash against the civil rights movements) have been on the rise in recent years, including some high profile examples such as the New Haven, CT firefighter case which was upheld by the Supreme Court. Indeed, when Joe Gerteis, Penny Edgell, and I fielded our American Mosaic survey back in 2004, we found significant evidence of whites claiming that they had been the victims of discrimination.

Another thought: one of the reasons this study and the media attention it has received have stuck with me is that I learned about them in the same week that I read about Ellis Cose’s new work, excerpted in Newsweek, which proclaims “the end of African American anger.” Cose, of course, is a journalist not a social scientist, but he is an acute observer and diligent interviewer and his 1993 book The Rage of a Privileged Class was a touchstone and a springboard for many who study race and racism in the academy.

Third: the authors interpret their findings to mean that whites “view racism as a zero-sum game, a situation in which one side’s gain automatically results only from the other’s loss.” This is provocative and compelling. After all, the finding isn’t just that African Americans experience less racism now than in previous generations. No, it’s that whites really seem to believe that they are now being actively discriminated against. There may be a bit of truth here (in terms of social policies designed to help people of color rather than whites), but I have a hard time equating that with reverse discrimination and anti-white bias. Rather, these anecdotal perceptions seem driven by more petty things like jealousy, greed, resentment and, yes, anger at the (relative) success of others than by systemic discrimination.

Finally, I can’t help considering how this contrasts with Richard Alba’s non-zero-sum mobility, introduced in his Blurring the Color Line which I reviewed recently in Contemporary Sociology. Non-zero-sum mobility, Alba writes, occurs when certain groups can advance in society without taking away from or posing a threat to the privileges and position of the existing majority group. This helps us explain how, for instance, the southern and eastern European immigrants of the previous century were able to successfully assimilate in the U.S. Alba also believes this framework may be key to better, more equitable race relations and outcomes in the U.S. especially  if economic growth combines with low birth and replacement rates among white Americans to open up new opportunities for recent immigrants and native individuals of color. I won’t recount my entire review and critique of Alba’s book here, but I was obviously struck by the contrast between his optimistic concept and the related (but opposite) concept Norton and Sommers put forward.

In the end, I find myself inclined to take Norton and Sommers’ data seriously; even if I think the perception of rampant discrimination against white Americans is factually incorrect, the fact that so many people have that perception at all is incredibly telling. And that’s not just because the contradictory notions individuals hold ring true to my vision of contemporary race relations, but  because I believe it’s often ideas—even those that don’t accord with objective social realities, indeed especially those—that are among the most powerful, potent forces in social life.