Predicting perceived racism and acceptance of negative behavioral intergroup responses: Validating the JLS in a college and community sample of Blacks

The present study provides a replication and extension of the validity of a measure of anti-White attitudes in Blacks. A college and community sample of Black participants completed the recently developed Johnson–Lecci Scale (JLS) and subsequently made responses to scenarios involving ambiguously racist behavior, direct confrontation with a perceived racist, and Black anti-White discrimination. The results indicated that Black intergroup attitudes involving expectations of racism factors did predict perceived racism in the ambiguously racist scenario and acceptance of direct confrontation with a racist, but they did not predict acceptance of anti-White discrimination. However, anti-White discrimination was predicted by the attitudes associated with outgroup-directed negative responses. Moreover, the findings indicate that there are a number of differences between the college and community samples on both the nature of their anti-White attitudes and intergroup responses towards Whites.