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

Interview data from 1997 and 1998 suggests young, working-class women are the most likely to be racial progressives. This goes against the standard scholarly and media argument that working-class white people are racists due to fear of losing their place in a changing world. These same thinkers have long assumed that middle-class white people are tolerant of other races, but Bonilla-Silva again argues that it does no good to classify white people into “good’ and “bad” camps since what matters is how white people choose or choose not to defend systemic privilege. For his own studies, he classified those who support affirmative action and interracial marriage and who recognize the significance of discrimination as racial progressives. As with other points in the book, one might question his labels or criteria, but, as with other points in the book, he is up front about his methodology and his justifications. Regardless, based on these criteria, he classified 15% of college students and 12% of his adult interviewees as racial progressives. He devotes extra time to them in his book (a full chapter to just their voices) presumably because they embody more of the ideals Bonilla-Silva wants the reader to embody themselves. Positive examples are often more impactful as examples than are negative ones.

Bonilla-Silva classified five students (three from one school, two from another) as racial progressives (they had very liberal or radical politics and meaningful relationships with people of color). Four of them were working or lower-middle class, and all of them were women. He profiles them in the next sections.

Beth: “Being a White Male I Guess You Don’t Realize Shit Until It’s Shoved in Your Face”

Beth grew up in southeast Portland in a lower-middle class neighborhood. She was exposed at a young age to people of multiple races and listed a diverse group of friends throughout her schooling. She had dated no one of color besides a person with some Native American lineage, but she admitted to having a crush on a Black student in her past. She identified herself as very liberal and supported interracial marriage and affirmative action strongly, even describing arguments she had gotten into with a white male who opposed affirmative action. Additionally, she argued (unlike three of the other progressives) that “integration can change [people’s] hearts” (280). However, even she admitted to not having a lot of contact with people of color at her college and showed a slight misunderstanding of what affirmative action is (she saw it as just an opportunity to give people of color equal opportunity).

Mandy: “I Think That It Is People Who Oppose Interracial Relationships Based on the Problem They Would Have with Kids [That] Make the Problems for Their Kids.”

Mandy was a half-Cherokee student, who also acknowledged she came from a working-class background and reports that she came from the “white trash” part of her hometown (281). Though she grew up in an area that was 98% white, she reported having Native American, Black, and Asian friends growing up and noted that she still was very good friends with a Black ex-boyfriend. She identified as extremely liberal and as a strong supporter of interracial marriage and argued that people concerned about the children of such couples are really saying they would be the ones making troubles for them. Mandy told stories of times she had witnessed discrimination and also believed that there is no such thing as reverse discrimination, given the benefits white males have from just being born white males. She did admit to having racist family members, but she did not tell the story in the trinity framing or use it to couch her own views in any way. Nevertheless, having this racist milieu around her will affect Mandy even though she is in no way a racist herself.

Kay: “I’ve Been Going Out with the Same Guy since My Sophomore Year in High School. He’s Black.”

Kay was a college sophomore from a lower-class background. She came from a high school in which white students made up less than half the population. At the time of the interview, she was dating a Black student at college, and, through him, she was in contact with other people of color. She strongly supported interracial marriage and affirmative action, even considering herself the beneficiary of affirmative action (being one of the only students to see affirmative action as not being purely about race but also about class and other considerations). Even still, she was somewhat tenuous as a racial progressive. She objected to specific affirmative-action based prompts and also used the frames of abstract liberalism to oppose bussing students across districts to diversify schools; to her, everyone should have a choice to go to any school they want. Finally, she noted that her parents did not approve of her Black boyfriend. This does not make her a racist, of course. Rather, like Mandy, this element of her family will affect her decision-making process in the future.

Bonilla-Silva identified eight of his adult respondents as racial progressives, but he noted that four were more progressive than others. As with the college students, the majority (seven of eight) were women who came from lower-middle-class backgrounds (six of eight) who had an interracial lifestyle. He profiles two more progressive ones from the 1998 interviews followed by two less progressive ones.

Sara: “Why [Was the Company 97 Percent White]? Because That’s, Well, the Fact There is Racism.”

Sara, an unemployed 20-something born in a low-income, racially diverse neighborhood in Detroit, lived an interracial lifestyle: she was dating a Latinx person, and her sister was engaged to a Black man with whom she had two children. Thus, she was firm in her commitment to interracial marriage. Though she had very little knowledge of bussing and affirmative action programs, she agreed the government ought to spend money to compensate Black people for past discrimination. Nevertheless, when she was asked about specific (albeit hypothetical) situations in which affirmative action was being implemented, she opposed them. However, she agreed that it was racist that the hypothetical company she was asked about was 97% white and strongly voiced complaints about any white person being mad about an almost-all-white company hiring Black workers. Free of any prompting at the end of the interview, she again voiced that interracial marriage was not “wrong” and that people should leave those in such relationships alone (288).

Sue: “I Suppose If You Keep Running Your Head into the Wall, after a While You Just Say, ‘No More.’”

Sue grew up in an upper-middle-class household but had stepped back in her class status. A retired teacher in her early 50s, she worked as a cleaning person and real estate agent part time. As a child, she did not have much exposure to Black people, though she remained friends with her father’s cleaning woman (a tenuous connection but a permanent one). Sue believed discrimination explained the status of Black people and was adamant that their situation has nothing to do with laziness. She supported affirmative action and suggested that white people don’t like it because they are afraid of losing control of society. Nevertheless, though she said she did not have a problem with interracial marriage, she voiced that she felt sorry for the kids and that she herself would not marry a Black man due to a bad experience with a Black man who worked for her father in their home. She also interpreted some of the differences between Black people and white people as being biological, noting that Black people were better at running and dancing, for instance. Sue also admitted that her boyfriend was prejudiced against Black people, and this likely impacted her progressive views. Bonilla-Silva points out once again that this does not mean she is a racist so much as it proves his point: that social networks matter regardless whether an actor is aware of it.

Staci: “Probably because of Racism”

Staci, a 50-something school custodian who grew up middle-class, had a high level of interaction with Black people over the past two and half decades of her life. Although she herself never dated a person of color, she had no objections to interracial marriage and believed that daily discrimination against Black people occurs. She even pointed out the ways it could happen, describing the situation of a person not getting equal service in a retail setting. She said that Black people are worse off than white people due to racism, yet she used the “past is the past” framing to describe why Black people do not deserve extra accommodations or reparations today. Thus, she did not support affirmative action or bussing, and she argued that housing segregation is more about economics than race.

Judy: “I’m for It [Affirmative Action] a Little Bit, Not Real Dramatically.”

Judy grew up in mostly white neighborhoods and was working as a college professor of nursing at the time of the interview. She had been good friends with Black women since college, and she led the cultural relations committee at her college. She believed discrimination was common and noted stories of a Black man not being treated at a hospital due to race and of a Black woman being given unequal treatment at a store. Like most of the progressives cited in the book, Judy’s experience as a woman helped her to empathize with Black people. But despite being classified as a racial progressive, Judy’s answers to many questions were not completely progressive or that different from those of most white people. She voiced concerns about the children to explain her opposition to interracial marriages, though she thought such relationships were “acceptable” and said she would consider such a relationship for herself (294). Of affirmative action, she said she supported a little bit of it but did not like quota systems, seeing them as temporary solutions. And she saw no governmental role in eliminating racial inequality, although she admired “Bill Clinton’s racial dialogues” because the nation needs to have a “dialogue about this rather than trying to fix it through these, like affirmative action program[s], after the fact” (295).