Duke University sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva says today’s racism is fomented without the use of actual racists. Or something like that.
He’s also written a book by the same name — Racism Without Racists, that is — and says that such is “a new way of maintaining white domination in places like Ferguson.”
“The main problem nowadays is not the folks with the hoods, but the folks dressed in suits,” says Bonilla-Silva.
“The more we assume that the problem of racism is limited to the Klan, the birthers, the tea party or to the Republican Party, the less we understand that racial domination is a collective process and we are all in this game.”
As people talk about what the grand jury’s decision in Ferguson means, Bonilla-Silva and others say it’s time for Americans to update their language on racism to reflect what it has become and not what it used to be.
“The more we assume …”? You have to like how Bonilla-Silva falls precisely into that which for he lambastes white America. Who is the “we” who assumes racism is the (exclusive) realm of a group which includes the Tea Party and the GOP? Who is the “we” who groups the KKK together with the Tea Party and the Republican Party?
If that isn’t enough to make you stop reading right there, you’ll also “learn” that when whites utter phrases like “I don’t see color,” “But I have black friends” and “Who are you calling a racist?” (by the way, who actually says the second one anymore? It’s long since become a parody of sorts), they’re demonstrating incredible naïveté.
The article goes on to lament the conservative bloc of the US Supreme Court’s (legal) skepticism of “disparate impact,” the “legal approach that doesn’t try to plumb the racist intentions of individuals or businesses but looks at the racial impact of their decisions.”
To wit:
Disparate impact is built on the belief that most people aren’t stupid enough to openly announce they’re racists but instead cloak their racism in seemingly race-neutral language.
And there you have it. Everyone is racist, no one will admit it, and all will attempt to hide such using tactical (racial) subterfuge.
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