Iberian Exceptionalism

It is believed by many that there is less racial prejudice in Latin America than there is in the United States. The following research challenges the validity of that belief:

The "racial democracy" (Iberian Exceptionalism) thesis claims that racial prejudice in Latin America is not only lower than that found in the United States, but is essentially absent altogether. We explored the plausibility of this thesis by the use of both explicit and implicit prejudice measures among Blacks and Whites from the United States and three Caribbean nations (the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba). In general, the results showed significant racial prejudice against Blacks and in favor of Whites in all four nations. African-Americans were the only respondents not to show significant implicit prejudice either in favor of or against Blacks. In addition, North Americans displayed both lower implicit and explicit racial prejudice than respondents in each of the three Latino nations. Overall, the results clearly contradicted the thesis of racial democracy and suggest that Latin America may not be nearly as egalitarian as some have argued.