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

Most survey researchers agree about the racial attitudes of Black people. They all agree that Black people and white people both identify with some aspect of Americanism or liberalism, but they have radically different opinions on issues of race. Bonilla-Silva’s survey results suggest the same. Only one in five Black people surveyed said they prefer mostly Black neighborhoods while over half the white people surveyed said they prefer mostly white neighborhoods. Similarly, more than half of white people said America had made a lot of racial progress compared to under 30% of Black people surveyed. There has not been enough qualitative data to confirm these surveys. Bonilla-Silva attempts to use his interviews to see qualitatively if Black people use similar color-blind framings as white people do, although he admits his sample is rather small (containing just 17 people chosen randomly from a much larger pool). This chapter is divided into three parts. First, he assesses the influence of color-blind framing on Black Americans; second, he examines the extent to which Black people rely on those framings; and third, he explores whether Black people have adopted the racial stories of those framings.