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

This frame is the most important because white people use it to attack affirmative action as well as defend their lack of relationships with Black people.

Rationalizing Racial Unfairness in the Name of Equal Opportunity

Bonilla-Silva quotes a white student, Sue, as saying that minorities should have to meet the same requirements for entry at school as white students. This ignores the effects of past and present discrimination on the social, economic, and educational status of minority students. Eric, a Detroit-area professional, argued passionately against reparations because he says he had nothing to do with things that happened three generations ago, but he is in favor of reparations for Jews and Japanese who suffered in World War II (of which, it could be noted, he also had nothing to do). Surveys have also shown white people tend to be more willing to spend government money generally than to spend money for Black people specifically.

The Most Qualified…”: A Meritocratic Way of Defending White Privilege

White people often defend racial inequality by arguing for the liberal notion of a meritocracy, but they don’t admit that the meritocracy seems to overwhelmingly reward white people. Diane, a college student, is quoted as arguing that merit alone is what should determine admissions to college or the workforce and that she ought to be rewarded for being motivated enough to get good grades, implying that another student would be undeserving due to a personal or cultural defect. Jim, an adult, compared people to beer, noting that we make choices in what beer to buy and that it would be unfair for the government to promote one over another; as such, affirmative action would be bad because it’s unfair. This is a liberal position as it suggests a laissez faire or market-based approach to the world, but it overlooks the statistics cited in Chapter 2 about how much discrimination there is in the workforce. Like Sue and Eric, Diane and Jim are able to maintain a seemingly neutral (and thus not overtly racist) position in the dominant liberal discourse.

“Nothing Should Be Forced Upon People”: Keeping Things the Way They Are

A tenet of liberalism is the belief in the invisible hand and the idea that change should not come from the government but from the people. In Jim Crow, this was embraced with the idea that you cannot change people’s hearts or legislate morality, but the idea persists today. Sonny, a student, supported school integration in principle but noted that government cannot change people’s hearts. Lynn, a professional, also agreed integration is good but noted that she does not want her children to be bused away from her community school. She added that neighborhoods ought not be forced to integrate because it is the choice of people to live where they want to live. Lynn could offer no solutions to increase integration efforts.

Individual Choice or an Excuse for Racial Unfairness and Racially Based Choices?

White people routinely refer to individual choice as the reason there is unequal conditions of life for Americans, but the problem with this is that individual choices are themselves limited by the hegemony of white culture: Whites have group-based advantages that allow them to make individual choices. Lynn agreed that white men tended to repress minorities and other people but opposed affirmative action because it was a group-based action rather than an individual one. Mandi, another professional, professed that people choose their neighborhoods because they want to be surrounded by people of their own race.

Thus far, Bonilla-Silva argues, social scientists have yet to address the way white people naturalize race-related matters. Naturalization was the least-used framing by his study subjects, but they still used it roughly half the time, using phrases such as “that’s the way it is” to refer to artificial and unnatural processes such as segregation. Both Sara and Liz, college students, suggested that Black students self-segregate because it’s only natural for them to hang out with other students who share the same values. Liz went so far as to explain it as only natural that she’s not attracted to Black men, but add that it has nothing to do with race. Bill, a manager in a marketing firm, suggested that people naturally group together the way elephants or cheetahs do in the wild. Earl, a contractor in his fifties, argued that there is nothing wrong with segregation since everyone is free to move anywhere. Of course, social scientists have proven that the only reason there is segregation is because of unnatural forces that end up creating white neighborhoods, white schools, and a general white habitus, but given that these are what white people are exposed to, no wonder it seems totally natural to them.

Scholars have argued that overtly racist beliefs in the biological or genetic superiority of white people have largely been replaced by a belief in a superiority of culture. Starting in the 1960s, commentators stopped referring to “negro culture” and instead talk about a “culture of poverty,” a phrase repeated by both conservative and liberal commentators (166). Similar phrases not mentioned by Bonilla-Silva but occur frequently in right-wing commentary include defense of “Western civilization” or Donald Trump’s evocation of “shithole” countries as opposed to the America he thought could be made “great” again. Regardless, these phrases blame the victims while implying a lesser status to minorities. Bonilla-Silva is interested in arguing not that this framing exists (that is well agreed upon by scholars) but rather what it allows white people to accomplish.

Two college students, Kara and Kim, said they agreed that Black students tended to be lazy and that they sought handouts for past or present perceived discrimination, though they both added that this was not true for all Black students. This, combined with the minimization of racism frame, is especially problematic since it suggests white people will perceive any claims of discrimination from Black people as being an excuse for their own laziness. Ann and Jay, both students, couched their feelings in a kinder framing, suggesting that poverty is a cycle and that growing up in poverty makes Black people prioritize different things. Professional adults were far more likely to use cruder renderings than Ann and Jay’s. Isaac, an engineer, stated bluntly that Black people are not educated well enough to be engineers because they seek academic shortcuts. Ian, a manager at an automotive company, stated that Black people (the majority at least) simply don’t strive to achieve anything or better themselves. He suggested there was a biological component to this but also added that culturally Black people just expect to get something because of slavery, unlike the Chinese or Japanese who learn that they need to be smart.

In general, surveys have proven that white people believe discrimination exists but that it does not matter as much as Black people think it does. College students in Bonilla-Silva’s survey were more willing to admit discrimination exists, likely because they were currently enrolled in classes teaching them that it does; however, they often denied that it mattered by stating they themselves did not witness it or (in smaller numbers) that minorities make things look racial when race is not involved. Two students argued that Black people did not get jobs not because of race but because they might not be as qualified as other applicants while another argued that Black people just simply claimed the only reason they didn’t get a job was bigotry.

For the professionals, most argued simply that racism used to exist but wasn’t as bad today. Some respondents (all of whom, it should be noted, were of working- or lower-class backgrounds) even went so far as to say no discrimination currently existed. One retail salesperson, Sandra, argued that Black people tended to use racism as an excuse for their own shortcomings and suggested that there is “a lot of reverse discrimination” against white people because of racial sensitivities (175). Another respondent argued that Black people who are discriminated against deserve it because they act irresponsibly or complain too much, noting that Black people who behave don’t experience discrimination.