I or We? Linked Fate, Self-Interest, and African American Opinion Toward Reparations

Recent years have witnessed renewed calls for reparations to advance racial equality in the United States. In response, a number of localities and institutions of higher education have provided reparations to the descendants of slaves. However, the policy remains controversial as evidenced by a clear racial divide characterized by overwhelmingly White opposition to reparations and strong majorities of African Americans supporting the provision of cash payments to the descendants of slaves. While much attention has been paid to empirical explorations of White opinion, in this paper we investigate the determinants of African American opinion, with a particular focus on the influence of measures of economic self-interest and linked fate in structuring African American opinion. Using data from two large national surveys of Americans, we find consistent evidence that linked fate is a strong and consistent predictor of African American support for reparations, while self-interest is a weaker and less consistent predictor, controlling for a wide array of political, socioeconomic, and attitudinal factors. These findings are reinforced by quantitative and qualitative content analysis of open-ended responses by African Americans to the question why they support reparations. Our results suggest that African Americans’ views on reparations are more strongly associated with the well-being of the African American community and less to do with the individual economic benefits of the policy.