Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America

Since the 1950s, surveys have proven that fewer white people agree with the dominant views of the Jim Crow era. These changes in attitude have been explained by commentators in four ways. The first is what the author calls the “racial optimists” and includes those who argue that these changes in attitude represent a profound change in American life. Several influential scholars are representative of this view, including Herbert Hyman and Paul B. Sheatsley, who wrote a series of articles for Scientific American that argued that Americans would no longer support a racist government. More recent adherents to the optimistic view include Glenn Firebaugh and Kenneth Davis. However, their views are flawed, according to Bonilla-Silva, because framing survey questions based on Jim Crow ideas creates an artificial image of progress; in fact, the new racism responds to a completely different set of realities. Secondly, the data itself is flawed because surveys alone are no longer sufficient for gauging beliefs about race in America. Bonilla-Silva’s quick summary and rejection of the optimists is the first indication this work is an academic one. Especially in contrast with the friendly and approachable tone of the foreword, the tone used in rejecting the optimists’ view is dense and formal.

A second group of analysts is labeled as the “racial pesoptimist position.” This view, embodied mostly by Howard Schuman, suggests that racial reactions are a give and take, a mix of progress and resistance. Researchers like this view because it implies neutrality, but Bonilla-Silva argues the pesoptimists are just optimists in disguise: they believe there has been progress, but that white people have yet to translate that progress into their own preferences.

A third group of analysts believe white peoples’ attitudes demonstrate the beginnings of what is called symbolic racism, through which white people identify Black people as culturally and morally lacking or working against the Protestant ethic of hard work and individualism. David Sears and Donald Kinder embody this position and have responded to criticism of their viewpoints by pointing out they don’t believe this is a wholly new phenomenon. Bonilla-Silva seems more inclined to this viewpoint than the others, but he notes it lacks a materially based explanation for why changes in white peoples’ attitudes toward Black people coincided with changes in strategy for Black activism. Additionally, there is no way to test for unconscious elements.

Finally, the fourth explanation can be called the “sense of group position” and is argued passionately by Lawrence Bobo and James Kluegel. Through this interpretation, white prejudice is an ideology designed simply to uphold and defend white privilege. As American society changed in the 1960s, a laissez-faire racism emerged, one that blamed Black people’s sense of inferiority for their own low economic standing. Bonilla-Silva agrees with aspects of this position as well as the symbolic racism position. However, while these thinkers root prejudice in interracial hostility and psychological baggage, Bonilla-Silva bases his argument on a materialist interpretation; he does not care about individual resentment toward minorities so much as the ways white privilege is maintained for material benefit.

This section is designed to be a brief overview of terms he defines in detail in the new Chapter 2. He even tells readers they can skip Chapter 2 if they just want to understand the basics of his argument. First off, he notes that white people and Black people perceive racism differently, with white people viewing it as prejudice and Black people as systemic. Bonilla-Silva notes his is not a theory book, but it still has etched into it the “ink of a ‘regime of truth’” so he wants to state his theoretical assumptions openly for readers and potential critics (40). As he did throughout the foreword, he tries to make the book feel like an open dialogue rather than a treatise.

First, he defines race, noting there is very little disagreement among social scientists that race is a social construct. There are three ways to approach this truth though. Some argue that race is not real and merely using race in the social sciences makes it real. Others note in passing that race is a social construct before going into detailed statistics about race without mentioning the social dynamics that produce these differences; this has the effect of reinforcing the racial order. The third approach, the one this book uses, acknowledges that race is a social construct, but it also has a social reality; once race is identified, then, it, like gender or class, has a real effect on people. Because of this, Bonilla-Silva introduces another term: racial structure. Racial structure was created after race and is defined as all the practices that reinforce white privilege. Again, all these are defined more deeply in Chapter 2. Racial structures end up empowering one group, making it difficult for that group to change the status quo and reject the benefits it receives while the subordinate group simply lacks the power to change the status quo. Thus, the dominant group will rationalize the existing structure.

To do so, racial ideologies are invented. These are the “racially based frameworks used by actors” to justify or attack the racial structures (42). Bonilla-Silva quotes Karl Marx and notes the ruling material force of a society is its ideological force, so material positions will always be defended intellectually. However, these can change, and Bonilla-Silva points out that he will discuss possible changes to hegemonic rule in Chapter 7. Racial ideology is made up of several factors: a common framing of group-based conditions, style based on how the groups react to themselves and each other (and which allow for people to respond differently to a survey about race than they would to actual interactions with members of a different race), and stories that a race tells about itself and other races. An ideology is a personal choice and a personal instrument, but it is not inherently logical, meaning white people can say they are not racist while actively supporting racist systems. Bonilla-Silva offers two caveats. First, the white social group is fractured by issues such as class, gender, and sexuality, but it still tends to benefit from being the dominant group in the racial contract. Second, though not all white people defend the racial system, most do. These caveats are an attempt to complicate the author’s position while also reinforcing it—an argument strategy he employs often in the book. 

Bonilla-Silva describes his methodology in this section, and it seems to be a direct counterpoint to the schools of analysis he describes earlier in the text. He relies on interviews rather than surveys because racism and the perception of race are more likely to be expressed in a conversation. Additionally, surveys often encourage respondents to feel they are supposed to choose a right answer rather than stating their true feelings. He proves the “right” answer and the real answer are not the same by pointing out that a vast majority of white people answer they would have no problem with a Black neighbor while the vast majority of white people do not actually have a Black neighbor. Worse, most mainstream survey researchers still use questions developed during the 1950s and 1960s. This promotes a false view of progress. He does note that he does occasionally use survey data even though surveys are problematic.

Data for this book comes primarily from two projects: the 1997 Survey of Social Attitudes of College Students and the 1998 Detroit Area Study. The first has a limitation in that it was a survey only of white people; the second that its respondents are Black people and white people only. These data collections are old, but Bonilla-Silva assures the reader that more data has confirmed his findings since the book was published in 2003, so the data is still valid, especially in conjunction with the other data he uses in the book.

Next, Bonilla-Silva notes that social science research is “always a political enterprise” (48). It is no longer possible to separate researcher, method, and data. Bonilla-Silva states clearly his goals for the book: “to describe the main components of color-blind racism and explain their functions” to anticipate how racial stratification in the US will develop in the future (48). Thus, his goal is a challenge to white post-civil rights accepted truth, as he hopes to uncover the ideology that upholds racial stratification. He hopes to advance an argument, an approach, and a politics that will help both scholars and activists. There is, then, a purpose that goes beyond the sociological underpinnings he has thus far developed, as he wishes not merely to understand the current state of racism in the United States but to correct it. However, he seems to anticipate a reader might be turned off by the political aspect of his argument and quickly clarifies he will support his argument with clear data. He will of course interpret the data since presenting data without interpretation “is like going to a beach without a swimsuit” (50).

Bonilla-Silva adds a brief note about how the purpose of his book is not to demonize white people or simply label individuals as racists. Rather, he wants to uncover structural practices, especially the ideological ones, that perpetuate and maintain the racial order. After all, good white people supported slavery and Jim Crow, and supposedly good white people challenge affirmative action today. For readers who are similarly “good” while supporting racist beliefs, Bonilla-Silva urges them to switch from being “non-racist” to being “antiracist” (51). “Antiracist” is a term that has come in vogue in recent years, especially as it is described by the best-selling author Ibram Kendi X (Stamped from the Beginning), but it should be noted that Bonilla-Silva used it much earlier than most in American society. Indeed, much of the contemporary discussion of antiracism is rooted in Bonilla-Silva and others’ work across disciplines. It is a collective approach, like the legal studies idea of critical race theory advocating that racism is institutional, not merely individual. Bonilla-Silva’s project assumes a priori that institutional racism exists (though he also elaborates on it with empirical data and anecdotes) and sets out to understand the personal viewpoints that reinforce the institutions. By urging the movement toward antiracism, Bonilla-Silva asks his readers to take responsibility for their own biases and try to change them, so they can recommit to a life devoted to achieving racial equity.