Our thought – all of us, even the most well-intentioned, the most careful, the most intelligent and well-educated – may be shot through with bias. The images with which we surround ourselves (and advertising is particularly pervasive and egregious in this regard, especially as concerns sexism) may produce stereotypes that subtly and not so subtly undermine our commitments to equality. 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.

Human beings are creatures for whom reasons are important; when we don’t have a good reason to tell ourselves, we often make one up (without realising that’s what we’re doing). An Implicit Association Test measures speed in associating pairs of concepts. For instance, you might press one key if presented either with a picture of an Aboriginal face or with the word for a positive concept (“laughter”; “wonderful”; “joy”) and another key if presented with a white face or the word for a negative concept (“pain”; “awful”; “evil”). In 2007, I embarked on a two-year, 27,000-mile trip. My destination? The fastest-growing and whitest counties in America. I wanted to understand why communities in the United States are getting less diverse, and to explain why so many white-only communities are flourishing in 2015. What I discovered is riveting and sobering, compelling and ironic. In Whitopia, I saw a culture driven by conscious and unconscious bias; I learned that a country can have racism without racists. Most of the people who didn’t call “Jamal” were probably unaware that their decision was motivated by racial bias, says Daniel L. Ames, a UCLA researcher who has studied and written about bias. we need to nurture a large cohort of antiracist whites to begin challenging color-blind nonsense from within.And because the group life of the various racially defined groups is based on hierarchy and domination, the ruling ideology expresses as "common sense" the interests of the dominant race, while oppositional ideologies attempt to challenge that common sense by providing alternative frames, ideas, and stories based on the experiences of subordinated races.

Olson M, Zabel K. Measures of prejudice. In: Nelson D, ed. Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination. Psychology Press; 2016:175-211. Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America, Fourth Edition". Duke University . Retrieved 23 June 2017. But here’s why such conversations rarely go anywhere: Whites and racial minorities speak a different language when they talk about racism, scholars and psychologists say.The author emphasizes that many people of color definitely exhibit prejudice against other races. White people are not the only guilty party. However, the difference is that white prejudice against other races has *actual power*. Other countries' majority race also have power, but whites are special globally in that other countries hold whites to an equal or higher standard than themselves. This can be seen in global media and the skin whitening industry, which is especially strong in Asia. Rusch H. The evolutionary interplay of intergroup conflict and altruism in humans: A review of parochial altruism theory and prospects for its extension. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2014;281(1794). doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.1539 When some whites talk about racism, they think it’s only personal – what one person says or does to another. But many minorities and people who study race say racism can be impersonal, calculating, devoid of malice – such as Michael Corleone’s approach to power.

What seems to have happened is that the words suggesting elderly people “primed” the elderly stereotype, and led to behaviour that was influenced by it. This effect may be independent of whether people believe that elderly people walk more slowly than younger. As a matter of fact, they probably did believe it. But the activation of the stereotype may be enough to influence behaviour. There were voters, for example, who were disappointed with President Obama’s economic record and believed he hadn’t added any jobs during his presidency. They were shown a graph of nonfarm employment over the prior year that included a rising line indicating about a million jobs had been added. we need to undress whites' claims of color blindness before a huge mirror. That mirror must reflect the myriad facts of contemporary whiteness, such as whites living in white neighborhoods, sending their kids to white schools, associating primarily with whites, and having almost all their primary relationships with whites Another recent article revealed how white supremacists in America are facing such hostility at home that some have moved to Europe in an attempt to link up with far-right groups. This is the processing that allows us to drive while thinking of other things, and which alerts us if an unexpected situation calls for attention (a dog runs out into the road for instance). It’s the processing that allows me to type while thinking about what to say, leaving both finger movements and grammar to sort themselves out.This is often where discussion of racism stops, with the world neatly divided into "racists" and "not racists". With this simplistic view of the problem, as long as people can reassure themselves that nobody is being actively racist, then all is well. But there are deeper levels to racism. It can be institutional, where people of colour receive an inferior level of service or care. When dealing with institutional racism, there may not be any one specific event or person that can be identified as the problem. The difference in how people are treated is buried away in processes and systems – "racism without racists" as it is sometimes described. Carl N. The fallacy of equating the hereditarian hypothesis with racism. Psych. 2019;1(1):262-278. doi:10.3390/psych1010018 There's a very interesting chapter on Obama's presidency and how he was much more centre or centre-right than his public image would lead people to believe. Whether this was a strategic choice to get votes or part of his own socialization, it ended in people voting for an abstract liberalism that looked and sounded good on the surface, but which didn't live up to its potential and was ultimately disappointing for people of colour on a policy level. (I'd still take it over Trump and the current political climate in a heartbeat, though)

Nonetheless, while most response to my journey has been encouraging, a consistent meme has also emerged. Was I, in fact, guilty of being racist by conducting this experiment? If I were EBS, here's how I would have framed my argument; this is sort of a toned-down version of his case. Overall, these interviews show that white Americans too often use colorblind frames and language to act as if we as a country had transcended race when we have not. It is the substitution of wish for inconvenient reality, and it colors a great deal of our politics and culture. It is, in short, a powerful denial mechanism. This belief can then be A. a way of justifying ongoing racial inequality B. A way of eschewing any responsibility C. A de facto defense of the racial status quo. This book shows how this mindset acts to undercut movements for racial progress given how many people simply don't think critically about race, our history, and their own lives/roles in these wider stories. Even though racism as a whole has declined and PoC have made significant progress in many ways, colorblind racism remains a major obstacle to change.

Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America, Sixth Edition

The smarter we are, the more self-confident we are, and the more successful we are, the less likely we’re going to question our own thinking,” Ross says. Ferguson has become a symbol of how some whites and racial minorities speak differently about racism, some say. JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images