Analysis Of Racism Without Racists

Racism exists all around the world and is a big part of our society today. From schools, to work places, to even restaurants, racism is there because we, ourselves have constructed it but, not everyone can see it through their own eyes because we were all born with different perceptions. In Racism Without Racists by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, racism is described in a variety of different ways whether it is due to biological factors or simply by saying that racism does not exist and people just need to work harder. Bonilla-Silva has experienced discrimination himself and he wrote this book to show that even though it is not extremely visible like before, such as segregation, it is subtler but still plays just as big of a role in our society as before.

One of the main topics Bonilla-Silva talks about in his book is racism and more specifically, color-blind racism. Racism is the belief that your race is the most supreme compared to others and they are inferior. Racism leads to other factors as well, such as discrimination, exploitation, and prejudice. Color-blind racism is the idea that racism does not truly exist, making it seem very subtle and everything in life is based off of meritocracy (hard work). Color-blind racism is connected to race because although it is trying to say racism is non-existent, it carries out different categories of action which prove racism is present in today’s world. To be more specific, the four frames of color-blind racism are abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and minimization. These four frames go into great detail on how racism is expressed in different ways and yet make it seem like it does not exist. The biggest idea of color-blind racism is meritocracy though and how those of color are blamed for not working hard enough when it comes to justifying racism. This relates to Bonilla-Silva’s research because those whites who were being interviewed were asked why they got the job instead of say the black candidate and their answers were always similar to one another. Meritocracy came into play with this question because the whites always said that those of color did not work hard enough and even brought in the idea of model minority. Model minority is our societies response to racism and how the Asian minorities have succeeded and therefore racism does not exist. The whites used the Asians as justification to prove that other minorities need to work just as hard as them in order to get better jobs and such. Bonilla-Silva found that whites were using meritocracy to prove racism is non-existent as well as very subtle. He found in his research that many of the