Public Opinion Towards Race-Targeted Interventions as Evidence of Support or Oppression of the Ku Klux Klan

Zakiyyah N. Ashshaheed, The College of Wooster

Abstract

Past research shows that many people who are in opposition to race targeted interventions have a high school education or less or were raised by parents with a high school or less education, were raised in the Southern or Midwestern United States or were raised by parents who grew up in these two regions, whose parents were raised during segregation, are male, Catholic or Protestant, never or rarely attend church, and are more conservative in their political views. Results from those studies showed that opposition for racetargeted interventions are rooted in (1) the set of attitudes into which children are socialized early in life which results in a rigid, authoritarian adult who is prejudiced against anyone who is different from the self, (2) resentment and resistance to universal conformity which leads to conflict to determine who has authority over whom, and (3) white's fear of loss of economic status and political power on account of advancements for African-Americans. This Independent Study thesis will explore attitudes about racetargeted interventions and correlate these attitudes with a number of variables that will give a profile of the type of people who are sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan.