Many people love to believe that racism
does not exist. Remarks like, “But our president is black” justifies their idea
of this racism free world, where the color of your skin does not even matter. According
to Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s book, Racism
Without Racists, he presents how “Post-Obama” United States is now this
country blinded by the existence of racism. Bonilla-Silva goes about this
discussing color-blind racism and racial inequality in contemporary America.
Through chapters 1-5 he touches upon the ideology of color-blind racism and how
individuals walk and talk as though it’s not a problem in the world.
Bonilla-Silva stresses how color-blind
racism is the central force for the lack of acknowledgement of the racism that
truly exists. To set the stage, he uses many interviews to “explain, justify, rationalize,
and articulate racial viewpoints” (Bonilla-Silva, 11). Sugar-coating racism is
the approach many of the interviewees took in order to “not be racist.”
According to Bonilla-Silva, “Color-blind racism’s race talk avoids racist
terminology and preserves its mythological nonracialism through semantic moves
such as ‘I am not a racist, but,” “Some of my best friends are…”
(Bonilla-Silva,70). From Bonilla-Silva’s standpoint, you can talk “sweet” in
regards to racism all you want, but racism is racism any direction you turn. In
one of the interviews, an individual was asked about interracial marriage and
part of his response was, “…I don’t have anything against it” (Bonilla-Silva,
68). Just by saying there is nothing against it obviously means he does. I can
only imagine the kick Bonilla-Silva got out of the many interviews he had
because I was at the edge of my seat saying, “Shut up, you’re racists.”
Color-blind racism and its occurrences
are centered on the white community since they come up with any story,
statement, comment, etc. to pull off this, “But we’re cool now” approach. In
chapter 4 Bonilla-Silva covers their storytelling/testimonial approaches to
play victim of the crime. From what I noticed within the chapter, they like to
pose ideas from the past to accentuate how things aren't the way they were, but HELLO it is! They want to come off with their “power to the people” standpoint,
but still have the nerve to say they didn't get a job because of a minority. Storytelling/testimonial
approaches are what “help” whites out; they have embedded these approaches so
deep within themselves that it makes them who they and allow for this color-blind
racism nonsense. In my perspective, it is not just faking that things are
handy-dandy that is the problem, but not acknowledging that there IS a problem is
what is messing up the world and taking racism to a whole other level.
Bonilla-Silva makes it clear that after
Obama’s election, color-blind racism and racial inequality is at its peak and
has gone so far back in the past that situations that were 40 years behind are
making its way forward, but in a way that individuals are in denial of. The
more people talk, the less they pretend to know or at least do the best they
can to display this “peace and love” for all races.
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