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

Content analysis of the interviews with Black and white adults in Detroit suggests that Black people are far less likely to use the color-blind frames directly. In fact, as the data presented in the table in this chapter shows, only three frames seem to have impacted the way Black people perceive race: abstract liberalism, cultural racism, and naturalization of racial matters. This does not mean Black people and white people navigate two different ideological worlds. An ideology is not dominant because it affects everyone in the same way and to the same extent; rather, an ideology is dominant only if most participants in a social system have to accommodate their views to or through that ideology. Bonilla-Silva’s main point in this chapter is that color-blind racism has affected Black people indirectly, which affects the chances “of them developing an all-out oppositional ideology to color-blind racism” (304).

Slightly more than a third of Black respondents used the framing of abstract liberalism that is so central to white people’s opposition to affirmative action, interracial marriage, and other aspects of race in the United States. Black respondents used abstract liberalism to some degree in discussions of affirmative action and residential segregation.

Affirmative Action

Black respondents overwhelmingly supported affirmative action. One typical response came from the 40-something, unemployed Edward who noted that nothing is fair about the current system and that white people already have enough. He compared white people who complain about affirmative action to people who get ice cream but complain that they don’t have a cone. Others agreed. Only one Black respondent, Irma, a 30-something accounting clerk, opposed it because she thinks everyone should have equal opportunity. Even she, however, agreed with the use of affirmative action in specific scenarios because she was very quick to point out specific cases of discrimination she or others she knew had experienced.

School and Residential Segregation

Unlike with affirmative action, Black people’s opinions on segregation were greatly influenced by abstract liberalism. Most blamed the government, white people, or racism for segregation, but many also said that segregation was “natural,” “no one’s fault,” or simply “not a problem” (307). Most Black respondents, however, were like Latasha, a self-employed nail polisher in her late 20s, who pointed out that suburban schools get far more money per child than do inner-city schools. Though she, like white people, hoped for an equal future for all races, she noted that government intervention might be necessary to ensure that dream. Not everyone who agreed with Latasha that segregation was bad supported government intervention. Tyrone, an unemployed 40-something man, used the abstract liberalism frame of individual freedom to argue that you can’t tell people where they have to live. Nel, a retired janitor, blamed segregation on racism but argued that some Black people are responsible because they do not want to live near white people. She too could see no benefit of government intervention. Carla, an executive secretary in her forties, similarly ascribed to the abstract liberal framework of self-segregation, arguing that people choose where they live and what schools to go to. Thus, she saw no way to change the situation either.

Cultural Racism and Blacks

The typical Black respondent disagreed with the idea purported by most white respondents that Black people have a culture that creates their political and economic reality. Many argued white people’s beliefs were a coverup to forgive themselves for their own role in the contemporary reality of being Black in America. Even though few bought the explanation from white people, many were bound by this framing. For example, in a survey, nearly a third of Black respondents agreed that Black people are violent, lazy, or dependent on welfare. Bonilla-Silva offers two examples of how this frame shapes the views of Black Americans.

First is Vonda, an undereducated homemaker in her late 50s. She suggested Black people needed to “get off their butts and get an education” like white people in order to reverse their roles in the world, and she agreed that Black people are worse off than white people mostly because they are lazy (311). Interestingly, Vonda agreed with most Black people on most of the other issues discussed. Regina, another homemaker in her 50s, blamed herself for her role in the world while also agreeing that being born a white person absolutely gave someone an advantage. The puzzling stances of these two—that Black people are discriminated against but that they are also (as the cultural premises offered by white people imply) lazy—demonstrates that color-blind racism has affected Black people when it comes to racial matters.

Naturalization of Racial Matters and Blacks

Black respondents did not have a cohesive view of why segregation existed, but the various reasons they offered did differ from those of white people. Most Black respondents pointed out that white people had something to do with it. One, a social worker named Jimmy, said that white people had tried to keep Black people out of integrated schools or made them feel uncomfortable if they did enroll. Others (3 of 17, so not that many) relied on the naturalization framework used by white people. Even Jimmy suggested that “people clique by choice” and choose to stay with people of their own races to describe why neighborhoods are not integrated (313). Another respondent, Natasha, a nurse, agreed the government was responsible for school segregation but said that residential segregation was just something that naturally happened because Black people did not want to live in white neighborhoods and vice versa.

Minimization of Racism and Blacks

An overwhelming majority of Black people stated that discrimination against Black people was still central in American life, and more than 60 percent of the respondents (as opposed to just a third of white respondents) agreed that present-day discrimination contributed to the current position of Black people. In interviews, Black people responded as strongly as or at times even more strongly than they did in the survey. The aforementioned Tyrone was a strong supporter of affirmative action and even reparations because it would rectify the failed promise of 40 acres and a mule the government had promised freed slaves but never delivered. Natalie, a young data entry clerk, noted she had felt discriminated against by store clerks who follow her around too closely and noted that Black people are worse off because of racism. She agreed the government owed Black people something since the government had helped out other racial groups. Jimmy (from the previous section) described the way Black people and white people get shown different apartments or told different requirements for renting. Perhaps the scariest incident of discrimination came from Edward who described a conversation about race started by a white coworker. When Edward said white people were just as violent as Black people, another (white) coworker jumped up behind him, punched him, and called him an “African N-word” (317).

Despite the general agreement that they have been discriminated against or that discrimination exists commonly, some Black respondents have been affected by the minimization framing. Some Black people, for instance, agree that racism only exists as old-fashioned, Jim Crow-era behavior. Carla, for instance, said she had only experienced racism a couple times. Natasha noted that some Black people might experience discrimination but that should not mean it necessarily impacts them.

As mentioned in Chapter 5, the style of color blindness is “oblique, indirect, subtle, and full of apparent ambivalence and even flat-out contractions” (319). Bonilla-Silva has concluded that most Black people have not been impacted in any way by the style of the New Racism other than in the areas of semantics and rhetorical incoherence, the focus of this section of text.

Semantic Moves and Blacks

As noted throughout the text, white people use a series of rhetorical devices to avoid seeming racist to others. However, Black people do not seem concerned with appearing anti-white and instead tend to “call it as they see it” (319). They do not make up white friends or dance around; they state their opinions clearly. This is likely because Black people have little to hide and little to lose in the contemporary racial order. Whereas during Jim Crow, Black people had to act a certain way in front of white people, nowadays it is white people who are uncomfortable being their authentic selves in front of Black people. Even with issues one might expect Black people to be defensive about, such as the idea of reverse discrimination, the Black respondents were blunt. One respondent noted, for instance, that it did not really matter if affirmative action were “racist” toward white people since affirmative action only impacted a select few white people, whereas actual discrimination affected every Black person, meaning the two are not comparable (321).

When a respondent did filter their thoughts through color-blind-like rhetoric, it was usually as a way of differentiating between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be. Tyrone, for instance, said something like a “yes and no” response about affirmative action: He was still adamant that affirmative action was good but added that he was not in favor of it if everyone were equal (which they are not).

Bonilla-Silva noted that not a single Black respondent mentioned anything about having white friends as a way of softening their viewpoints. In fact, most mentioned simply that they had no white friends.

Rhetorical Incoherence and Blacks

Unlike with the white respondents, Black respondents were only incoherent when either they regularly talked with incoherence (meaning their speech always sounded the same) or when they truly were not informed enough about an issue to discuss it. With interracial marriage especially, Black respondents were far more adamant than their white counterparts and showed no hemming and hawing or other incoherent uttering. This is also supported by the fact that 88% of Black people in the survey said they supported interracial marriage generally and 84% said they would support their own child marrying interracially, which suggests more consistency in the opinions. Before beginning a discussion of these viewpoints, Bonilla-Silva offers two caveats. First, he is more interested in the form of the respondents’ answers than their contents. Second, he points out that the question of interracial marriage brings up different connotations. For white people, they seem to viscerally reject their readings of Black bodies; for Black people, the question reminds respondents of a history of rejection and exclusion.

One Black woman who said she would not marry a white person was the retired janitor Nel. However, she only stammered when she tried to explain why she never dated a white person. In all other cases, she was very straightforward in her responses and offered no needles qualifiers. She even said she supports her brother and his white wife’s right to live together and love each other. Most respondents were even more supportive of interracial marriage than Nel was, and they answered in even more straightforward manners. Similarly, those who opposed interracial marriage answered the interviewer’s questions without hesitation. Joe, an electronic mechanic in his 40s, answered the interviewer’s questions quickly and clearly with simple yes and no answers or with confident declarations such as “I feel people of the same race should stay together instead of interacting” (326). Only two of the interview respondents answered hesitantly about interracial marriage, and Bonilla-Silva asserts that one of them did so simply because he was uncomfortable talking about his own sex life and thought the interviewer might be asking him if he were a homosexual or if he were only interested in white women, making him an anti-Black Black person.

Bonilla-Silva notes that almost none of the Black respondents seemed to respond to any of the four color-blind story lines he described in Chapter 4. The exceptions were the story lines “the past is the past” and “I never owned any slaves,” which seemed to affect one person directly and four indirectly. The conservative executive secretary Carla argued against reparations by using lines similar to those. And indirectly, Natasha noted that she would support reparations but added a qualifier: “But are there any of those people around?” (328). Similarly, Edward argued that America needed to focus on the problems of the present rather than dwell on the past.