Racialized Emotions: Happiness and Pleasure in American Racism

J. Scott Carter and Cameron D. Lippard

Social Science Quarterly, 2025, vol. 106, issue 3

Abstract: This article addresses Dr. Eduardo Bonilla‐Silva's challenge to examine positive emotions as part of racism, a concept he labeled Racialized Emotions. For good reason, contemporary scholars often emphasize negative attitudes and emotions associated with modern‐day racism and how they hinder support for racial policies and political actors. However, we argue that reflections on racially controversial policies and political actors can produce positive emotions among individuals who hold racist viewpoints as well. Using data from the 2018 American National Election Study pilot study, we analyze emotional reactions to Donald Trump as a case study of how an authority figure can shape racialized emotions. Our findings reveal that higher levels of racial resentment and group threat are linked to increased positive emotions and decreased negative emotions in response to Trump's actions and rhetoric. This supports the notion that racism can have emotional benefits, highlighting a positive emotional side of racism that is often ignored in the media and scholarship.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.70037

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:socsci:v:106:y:2025:i:3:n:e70037

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0038-4941

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science Quarterly is currently edited by Robert L. Lineberry

More articles in Social Science Quarterly from Southwestern Social Science Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().