What's in a Name? The Hidden Historical Ideology Embedded in Black and African American Racial Labels

First published October 25, 2021 in Research Articles at

Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976211018435

Commentary

This study investigated the relationship of "Black" and "African American" racial labels to the ideologies of the historical movements that brought them to prominence.

Two content analyses and two preregistered experimental studies (N= 1,204 white American adults) show that associations between "black" and "prejudice and discrimination" and between "African American" and "civil rights and equality" are evident from organizational images, opinions, and perceptions.

Google image search results for "black" view more racially aggrieved images than search results for "African-American," and in Study 2, works using the black label contain more content of prejudice and discrimination than works using the African-American. White Americans infer an organization's ideology by the racial labels within the organization's name, and these inferences lead to the extent to which whites support the organization financially.