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

Throughout Racism Without Racists, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva describes the ideology of color-blind racism. He identifies this racial ideology as “a loosely organized set of ideas, phrases, and stories that help whites justify contemporary white supremacy” (339). This ideology has four central frameworks: abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and minimization of racism (335). These frameworks are applied to virtually every aspect of racial relations in the US and are not dependent merely on individual viewpoints or ideas. Rather, ideologies are collective products that help to “express and reinforce symbolically” the dominance of white people in the systemic racist society of America. Bonilla-Silva argues that the ideology is powerful not just because people rely on it but because it is pervasive. He notes that even Black respondents to his interview questions often ended up using the color-blind framings of naturalization, minimization, and cultural racism.

The ideology has another form of power though. It allows any complaint from an oppressed person to be dismissed because the dominant person is unable to see past his or her ideology. That means that, for example, a Black person would have a hard time explaining to a white person why they felt discriminated against by a store employee who was too friendly or followed them around the store too much.