White Adults' Color-Evasive Racial Attitudes and Racism Emotionality: Understanding Patterns and Correlates

There is limited empirical work that examines how Whites psychologically maintain and make efforts to dismantle systemic racism. Prior work suggests that both color-evasive attitudes and aspects of racism emotionality predict Whites' behaviors and, to a lesser extent, their well-being as their racial position is challenged. Utilizing a sample of 897 White adults attending college (Mage = 22.98 years, SD = 5.95), the present study examined how color-evasive attitudes (i.e., blatant racial issues, racial privilege, and awareness of institutional discrimination), diversity attitudes (anti-Blackness attitudes, openness to diversity), and racism emotionality (i.e., white empathy, white guilt, and fear) co-occur together to meaningfully predict Whites' indicators of well-being (i.e., depressive and anxiety symptoms, perceived stress, and life satisfaction). Latent profile analysis revealed four profiles that varied from more antiracist configurations (abandoning racism profiles, 71% of the sample) to more racist configurations (internalizing racism profiles, 29% of sample). White individuals within the antiracist configuration displayed the highest levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms, perceived stress, and lowest levels of life satisfaction. While those in the internalizing racism configuration displayed statistically higher reports of satisfaction with life and lowest levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. Findings suggest that understanding the combined experiences of color-evasive attitudes and racism emotionality for Whites are important avenues for increasing responsibility and taking accountability in dismantling racism. Public Significance Statement This study suggests that White college students vary in their emotional and attitudinal response to racism; many students display antiracist patterns, and some students display racist patterns. Antiracist patterns relate not only to antiracist beliefs and actions but also to greater stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Clinical work and interventions focused on antiracism for Whites should normalize experiences of low well-being and distress as a process in the evolution of an antiracist identity.