“Racism Without Racists” Is Twisted Logic

Diverse Issues in Higher Education
October 9, 2008
By Dr. Pamela Reed

There is an astonishing theoretical perspective taking hold in the American academy, and working its way down into the mainstream. And if it remains unchallenged, it seems that it is well on its way to becoming an accepted tenet. It is the bizarre idea that, while racism is alive and well in America — to the continued detriment of non-White peoples and the entire nation — most of the people who continue to perpetuate the discriminatory practices necessary for racism to persist — be they political, social, economic or otherwise — are not racists. They just subconsciously harbor racist sentiments and consistently practice racism.

This may be a notion that defies logic, but it is, nonetheless, the face of today’s decidedly amorphous racial discrimination. This perplexing theory of human behavior is laid out in the 2006 book by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States, and is referenced by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in his recent column, “Racism without Racists.” Psychologists call this phenomenon “aversive racism.”

The Kristof piece opens with the following declaration: “One of the fallacies this election season is that if Barack Obama is paying an electoral price for his skin tone, it must be because of racists. On the contrary, the evidence is that Senator Obama is facing what scholars have dubbed ‘racism without racists (emphasis added).’”

To make his point, Kristof directs attention to the recently completed joint study by Stanford University, Yahoo and The Associated Press. He reasons that most White people, like the three in ten Democrats who indicated that they will vote for John McCain — basically because they cannot bring themselves to vote for a Black man for President — are “well-meaning Whites who believe in racial equality … yet who discriminate unconsciously.” They are not to be confused with the “dyed-in-the-wool racists” who comprise an estimated 10 percent of the American populace. What a puzzling concept.

Nicholas Kristof is a brilliant columnist, and no doubt a fine man, but this must be one of the biggest accommodations ever, albeit unconscious. And this brings to the fore what I believe is the existential dilemma that will ultimately determine the fate of this great nation. Fundamentally, either we believe in racial equality or we don’t. Exclamation point.

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