White Americans have long resisted the idea of reparations to the
descendants of slaves. We examine the psychological basis of such
resistance, primarily testing the possibility that resistance may be a
function of Whites' perception of the ongoing cost of being Black.
White participants (n = 958) across twelve independent samples (varying in
age, student status, and geographic location) were asked variations of the
question: How much should you be paid to continue to live the remainder of
your life as a Black person? Participants generally required low median
amounts, less than $10,000, to make the race change, whereas they
requested high amounts, $1,000,000, to give up television. To the extent
that larger amounts were requested, support for reparations also
increased. Attempts to educate participants about Black cost/White
privilege had negligible effects on assessments of the cost of being Black
and support for reparations. Together, these results suggest that White
resistance to reparations for Black Americans stems from fundamental
biases in estimating the true cost of being Black. The implications of our
findings for color-blind and multiculturalist conceptual approaches are
discussed.This work was facilitated by a
postdoctoral fellowship to the first author from the Kirwan Institute for
the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. In addition, we
are greatly indebted to Hal Arkes for comments on an earlier draft of this
manuscript.