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Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States
by
The first edition of this best-selling book showed that alongside the subtle forms of discrimination typical of the post-Civil Rights era, new powerful ideology of "color-blind racism" has emerged. Bonilla-Silva documented how beneath the rhetorical maze of contemporary racial discourse lies a full-blown arsenal of arguments, phrases, and stories that whites use to account
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Paperback, 2nd Edition, 288 pages
Published
August 4th 2006
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
(first published June 5th 2003)
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Start your review of Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States

A very interesting book, and one that almost feels as though it's telling you things you already know...and of course it is. It's documenting how many whites understand their reality and justify it, so if you've spent any time awake and alive in the world, much of this will sound very familiar. But I think it's good to bring a critical academic eye to it, though at times I felt it was stating the obvious -- an unfair criticism as I'm sure to many folks, all of this is far from obvious.
He himsel ...more
He himsel ...more

“One reason why, in general terms, whites and people of color cannot agree on racial matters is because they conceive terms such as ‘racism’ very differently,” writes Eduardo Bonilla-Silva writes in the excellent first chapter of his excellent book Racism without Racists. He continues, “Whereas for most whites racism is prejudice, for most people of color racism is systemic or institutionalized.” This is really the crux of his argument: in the post-Jim Crow racial order, prejudice is frowned upo
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People are going to tell you that EBS's argument is tautological. That's not totally without merit but you have to understand that the interviews are with individuals but the argument is about culture. Culture arguments stay being tautological. LOL Hard to get around that. It's an important theoretical response to the social psych super micro analysis of racism that makes it seem as though everyone is a racist so no one is really a racist. Most importantly, EBS is a hoot to read. Third edition,
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Aug 16, 2019
⚣Michaelle⚣
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
to-listen-tbr,
non-romance
Narrated by Sean Crisden...as if I didn't already need a reason to listen to this one!
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I am p unfamiliar with sociological methods and such so I don't know if I can rate this on the Robustness of his Research but I do think this is a pretty comprehensive survey analysis of Word Tricks White People Use ("I don't see color!")
I also appreciate that he got Straight To The Point about eg it was almost like the New Jim Crow but more roaringly upset (NJC was like sad-can-you-believe-this and Bonilla-Silva is like SAD CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS!!)
I also think an analogous and slightly differen ...more
I also appreciate that he got Straight To The Point about eg it was almost like the New Jim Crow but more roaringly upset (NJC was like sad-can-you-believe-this and Bonilla-Silva is like SAD CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS!!)
I also think an analogous and slightly differen ...more

I have a few qualms with this book. The biggest is that, although Bonilla-Silva claims that pathologizing the internalization of racist beliefs in moral terms is problematic, in areas of the book in which he measures subjects' responses via a standard of "purity," he does just that. Within his analysis, he also allows that the structural has an influence over the cultural but does not grant these concepts a reciprocal relationship. Otherwise quite insightful, however.
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Racism without Racists is a sociological study of why exactly it is that despite a sizeable portion of white people in America claiming that race doesn't even enter their thinking, or that they "don't see color," or that racism is in the past and things are better now, or some combination or variant of those arguments, any study of culture will reveal that there is still a huge gap between white and black people on household wealth, educational attainment, criminal conviction rate, rate of gradu
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While old-fashioned Archie Bunker racism is no longer acceptable in society (for the most part, as I type this in the Trump era), this book looks at how racism has simply become more coded. Discrimination in housing availability, in education opportunities, in banking practices, in policing, and in everyday micro aggressions has put racism under the surface and has made it much more subversive. Even the way politicians talk about issues like immigration, border security, and community safety are
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In this updated edition (just after Trump's election), Bonilla-Silva explores how the blatant racism of yesteryear has been replaced with a racism that is best described as color-blind racism. Color-blind racism is grounded in the idea that if people claim they do not see skin color or to act overtly harsh towards people of color, they are not racists (like white supremacists) and therefore, their actions are motivated by something else (market values, evaluations of self, etc). Bonilla-Silva du
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It is difficult to describe my thoughts on this book. Perhaps the most suitable descriptor, ironically, would be that it is "problematic." The book's premise is an interesting one; that racism is still prevalent, having evolved beyond, for the most part, the overt Jim Crow-style racism and into a new color-blind racism that makes no reference to race while maintaining many injustices and inequalities, and how that color-blind avoidance of discussing race can exacerbate this. This thesis is not w
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DNF...
sad to say i thought this book relied entirely too much on other people's work/writing... not that there is anything wrong with extensive footnotes/bibliographical notes, i found the constant referencing of other work to be incredibly distracting and dissonant... in a much longer tome this level of quoting, etc. would be fine, but this book rolls in at under 400 pages, and that just didn't work for me... maybe i expected more originality, or maybe i need the same facts told in ways that ar ...more
sad to say i thought this book relied entirely too much on other people's work/writing... not that there is anything wrong with extensive footnotes/bibliographical notes, i found the constant referencing of other work to be incredibly distracting and dissonant... in a much longer tome this level of quoting, etc. would be fine, but this book rolls in at under 400 pages, and that just didn't work for me... maybe i expected more originality, or maybe i need the same facts told in ways that ar ...more

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, professor of Sociology from Duke University, examines the linguistic patterns of whites in an age of "color-blindness" with regard to race. Interestingly this book was written pre-Obama, but reflects much of the "colorblind racism" in public discourse since his election. For Bonilla-Silva, racism is not personal (that is prejudice) but is the result of structural and political practices that isolate whites from people of color in residence, education, and social interactio
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Every "not racist" person needs to read this book so we can all once and for all get rid of the colorblind myth. The collection of interviews on race was so well done and it was so disheartening to hear that so many people harbor such lazy thinking on race. The one thing that rubbed me the wrong way was his analysis of Obama. I get the criticism, but I think part of the left's disappointment with Obama is that they thought he was someone he wasn't. I wish we could have taken him at his word. He
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So this is required reading for a class, but one with which I wanted to engage a bit. I like Bonilla-Silva's arguments and explanations for how "color-blind" racism and the fear of being seen as racist can eliminate discussion or opportunity to combat racism. If we all agree that "hey, we have a black president (or did, sad alas, now we have a sub-human orange one) so racism doesn't exist" then we can no longer talk about how to fix racism.
However, I personally am opposed to the discussions of ...more
However, I personally am opposed to the discussions of ...more

Going into this I expected a fairly breezy mass market book, probably just from the presentation (being one of the few books at my school library not shelved as an intimidating blank hardcover helps.) But I was pleasantly surprised to see that this is actually an academic sociology book that's very meticulous about its research and evidence. It's definitely readable for anyone without a lot of that background, but you should know what you're getting into first. Bonilla-Silva gives a detailed des
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In general, I think sociologists are annoying writers (less annoying than political scientists though). The first half of the book had an important contribution to offer regarding the rhetoric of color-blindness as depicted in the logic and speech of whites. Starting from his chapter on the color-blindness of black people, the book goes in decline with many generalizations and problematic approaches. The absence of gender in his analysis is really intolerable.
I think his claim that color-blindne ...more
I think his claim that color-blindne ...more

Was really disappointed in this as I really felt like there was an important element that is in this book around the premise itself. I think there could be great dialogue starting from this but it seemed to be so heavy-handed in the analysis or supposed conclusions/proofs that I struggled to keep reading. There was no nuance or appreciation for the complexity of the questions and how and why people would respond the way they did...instead it was boxed into why they were racist for not agreeing w
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The core of the book is excellent. The author's thesis is that we have moved away from what he calls "Jim Crow Racism" (what many white people associate racism with) to "Color-Blind Racism" (what many white people and our society are guilty of subscribing to). This new racism attempts to explain away non-white inferiority via weaker "morals" or "work ethic, or"cultural problems", with coded language like "most blacks are like This", rather than "all blacks are like This." Inferiority is not a bi
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Where to begin? This book thoroughly breaks down racism as it currently exists in the U.S. The first few chapters are dedicated to clearly define the various aspects of color blind racism, what it is centered around & how it came to be in the 60's & 70's after the Civil Rights Movement. After all this a given a clear structure, he begins with the language used in our society that gives lip service to being anti-racist but actually helps perpetuate racism itself. It is clearly demonstrated how on
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Moving old notes from book discussions here. Originally posted elsewhere on September 19, 2013
This book, along with a few other recent ones on the subject, have really touched the depths of the systemic and personal racial bias and inequality in today's America. You don't have to look far these days to witness a "racial incident." I won't name them all here, but suffice it to say that the research and information in this book is hard to refute if you are even slightly open to the idea that one c ...more
This book, along with a few other recent ones on the subject, have really touched the depths of the systemic and personal racial bias and inequality in today's America. You don't have to look far these days to witness a "racial incident." I won't name them all here, but suffice it to say that the research and information in this book is hard to refute if you are even slightly open to the idea that one c ...more

For a book on a topic that I think is so important, I was surprised by how much I disliked this. Well, perhaps "disliked" is the wrong word. I think if I were reading this as an assignment, I'd praise it as being one of the most interesting and relevant books I've read. However, because I'm reading it just for my own edification and interest, it made me a bit crazy. As someone who has studied sociology, I think qualitative assessment is important; however, as a data scientist, I hungered for mor
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Good for information but not for a general audience. In light of recent events this seemed like a good recommendation from the media. Author Bonilla-Silva takes the reader though how racism has changed in the post-Civil Rights era and how "color blindness" is actually not that at all. From the language to people use to the beliefs they hold he examines how racism still exists and how it continues to be perpetuated despite the perhaps optimistic views that these view will somehow fade away or die
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This book looks at two different interview studies (one at three colleges that was conducted by the author, one of adults in Detroit that was not) centered on white people's attitudes toward black people, racism, and policies such as affirmative action. There is also one chapter that examines black people's views on the same. Bonilla-Silva's analysis is incisive and targets the underlying ideologies of color-blind racism, namely abstract liberalism ("everyone should be free to choose, therefore
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I’m not a racist, so how can I possibly contribute to racism? This is the central question explored in “Racism without Racists.” The author demonstrates that our attempt to classify people cleanly into racists and non-racists is overly simplistic, and we should instead strive to be “anti-racists”, acknowledging that we make mistakes but still remain committed to the fight against racism. Specifically, he shows how when we [especially liberal-minded whites] attempt to label others as racist, dist
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There's a blurb on the back of the book that says everyone reading this title will have a light bulb moment, and I must say I agree. The author lays out his theory nicely, explaining how "color-blind" racism has replaced Jim Crow racism. He then goes on to qualify the subtle nature of color blind racism and how it can, as an ideology, affect both blacks and whites.
It only gets four stars instead of five because there is a LOT of sociology jargon, and the sample sizes are quite small. The author, ...more
It only gets four stars instead of five because there is a LOT of sociology jargon, and the sample sizes are quite small. The author, ...more

I read this book for a class that I'm taking at work on being more culturally responsive in my teaching. Though prior to the book, I had heard that "not seeing color" or "being color-blind" was not good, I never really understood the theory behind it. The author explains how racism has permeated our society and even how the idea of not seeing color perpetuates it. I obviously believe that the ideas are true, but it is still hard for me to look at this macro-level problem, without bringing it dow
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Many white Americans consider themselves "not racist," yet, by refusing to acknowledge how historical and contemporary forms of discrimination endow them with unearned advantages, and by believing in persistent racist tropes, they continue to support an unjust social order. Even before reading this book, I was frustrated by the mental contortions that so many white Americans perform in order to avoid acknowledging that discrimination -- past and present -- affects the life chances of minorities
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Eduardo Bonilla-Silva is a professor of sociology at Duke University.
He is trained in class analysis, political sociology, and the sociology of development (globalization). However, his work in the last 20 years has been in the area of race. He has published on racial theory, race and methodology, color-blind racism, the idea that race stratification in the USA is becoming Latin America-like, rac ...more
He is trained in class analysis, political sociology, and the sociology of development (globalization). However, his work in the last 20 years has been in the area of race. He has published on racial theory, race and methodology, color-blind racism, the idea that race stratification in the USA is becoming Latin America-like, rac ...more
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“Whereas for most whites racism is prejudice, for most people of color racism is systemic or institutionalized.”
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“Compared to Jim Crow racism, the ideology of color blindness seems like "racism lite." Instead of relying on name calling (niggers, spics, chinks), color-blind racism otherizes softly ("these people are human, too"); instead of proclaiming that God placed minorities in the world in a servile position, it suggests they are behind because they do not work hard enough; instead of viewing interracial marriage as wrong on a straight racial basis, it regards it as "problematic" because of concerns over the children, location, or the extra burden it places on couples.”
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