Name: Racism without Racists
ISBN: 9781442220546

Racism without Racists

"Eduardo Bonilla-Silva's acclaimed Racism without Racists documents how, beneath our contemporary conversation about race, there lies a full-blown arsenal of arguments, phrases, and stories that whites use to account for--and ultimately justify--racial inequalities. The fifth edition of this provocative book makes clear that color blind racism is as insidious now as ever. It features new material on our current racial climate, including the Black Lives Matter movement; a significantly revised chapter that examines the Obama presidency, the 2016 election, and Trump's presidency; and a new chapter addressing what readers can do to confront racism--both personally and on a larger structural level"--provided by publisher.

What Hacker News says

jszymborskiSep 2025

I never said they are the "most important", but simply they are "important". Your race or gender isn't the totality of who you are, but it is surely a part of you, your identity, and how people treat you. To ignore it also perpetuates racism, even among well-intentioned folks.

Here is some reading on the topic:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maiahoskin/2022/09/28/newsflash...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/color-b...

A great book I can recommend is "Racism without racists" by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

https://search.worldcat.org/title/Racism-without-racists-:-c...

thread

belochMar 2017

"Why do we discriminate? The big factor isn’t overt racism. Rather, it seems to be unconscious bias among whites who believe in equality but act in ways that perpetuate inequality."

--------

Aliefs[1] are a useful concept here. i.e. You may believe in equality but, thanks to the culture you live in, act against that belief unconsciously. There are a lot of reasons for people to alieve that blacks are less employable. Take, for example, Gangsta rap and it's continuing popularity. Here you have an art-form that glorifies materialism, violence, and lawlessness and is dominated by black artists. Few employers are likely to explicitly believe it is logical to fear or mistrust black job applicants because of gangsta rap, but its popularity nevertheless plants aliefs that contribute to the difficulties faced by black job-seekers.

--------

"Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, an eminent sociologist, calls this unconscious bias “racism without racists,” and we whites should be less defensive about it. This bias affects blacks as well as whites, and we also have unconscious biases about gender, disability, body size and age. You can explore your own unconscious biases in a free online test, called the implicit association test."

--------

It's important to draw a distinction between acting on racist beliefs and racist aliefs. Some would say the latter is being racist without knowing it, which is offensive to most and probably counterproductive to say. At present, racists are popularly viewed as demons to be mocked and punished. Even if there is a basis for calling someone acting on their aliefs racist, doing so is going to offend and hurt them and likely turn them against you. Subtler language is required here.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alief_(mental_state)

thread