thewritelucas's review against another edition
4.0
Though clearly formatted as a college textbook, this book is well worth a read for anyone who seeks to understand the pervasiveness of racism in a country that professes to be in a post-racial era. Drawing on two new dedicated qualitative interview studies and several previous data sets, Bonilla-Silva confronts White America's discriminations both active and subconsciously-learned and presents the necessarily radical paths forward that we must take if we are to avoid a baked-in racial hierarchy that we can no longer fight.
flowerrunner's review against another edition
4.0
This book is a highly academic approach to explaining the fact that racism is still powerful in the US. The way this is possible is that covert or color blind racism is replacing the overt racism that isn't "permissible" anymore. The author describes a variety of ways that white people use to diffuse their racism. One of the important devices is language. He also analyzes whether these strategies are used by black people. All of this is based on rigorous academic research with older and younger study groups, and excerpts of the interviews are shown in the book where relevant. I don't normally enjoy reading academic books in my spare time, because I'm already a researcher in my career, but this was well done and a good read. The author also inserts a chapter with a controversial view on Obama's presidency, and how it might have hurt progressiveness given that it's now overtly assumed that racism is over after having elected a black president. I guess you can't win - what a sad realization. I thought the personal opinions on the Obama era got a little intense in the book though I understand the reasoning. Overall it's a 3.5 star book for me - I'm rounding up given the importance of the topic. Thank you to the author for such thorough research and work, translated into a format that everybody can access (and maybe should?).
gellyreads's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
4.5
I felt like this was a bit repetitive, but fairly clear. I don’t know that I agree with the idea that the racism is unintentional, but I also am not sure I understood this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Police brutality, Classism, and Racism
inkerly's review against another edition
4.0
This book is great to be paired with How to Be an AntiRacist. If the latter is a breakdown of why AntiRacism is the only stance that is acceptable in this false notion of a postracial America, Racism without Racists is the evidence Eduardo Bonilla-Silva wields to prove just how behind we are — white people especially — in equalizing the equity and opportunities for all races, and how our era of “postracial colorblindness” is harming black and brown people more than not.
This book feels more like a sociology textbook than a reading. Each chapter poses a question, summarizes the survey cases conducted by Silva, and at the end of each chapter Silva presents his conclusions on whether or not his study supports the hypothetical question raised. In Chapter two for example, Silva explores the many ways white people voice their dissent for AntiRacist policies “under the guise of colorblindness”. Many white subjects are asked about their views on affirmative action and Silva analyzes the typical talking points of these white people and makes the argument that the tactics and language of white self-proclaimed “progressives” are often employed to soften the racist or prejudiced beliefs that they implicitly have towards black people and affirmative action.
It started off as very fascinating, as a black person, to get to “peek into” the mindset of white liberals and/or moderate people and get a sociologist’s perspective on what their coded language means — honestly it felt like “decoding” white people, LOL. But I’m not sure if this is necessarily a book that could lend itself to broader discussion. By that I mean, the book kind of just says “These findings show that white people say this but actually mean this—-“ there’s really no room for debate or discourse. In reading these survey accounts, I found myself thinking about the Youtube channel Jubilee and how they do a fantastic job of holding segments like “Middle Ground” and “Do All [insert race] think the same?” with the same intentions as Silva but in a much more open panel format. I think compartmentalizing his research in a textbook-like book with little background explanation of the people, and structure of the surveys/studies hurt the book’s credibility actually. I think this information would have been better presented in a documentary or video series so we can see and hear and interpret the subjects and experimental results for ourselves.
Chapter 10 was also probably the most anticipated chapter of the book. It’s the Obama chapter, and it seeks to explain why we went from an Obamerica to a Trump’s America and what that really says about society. To my surprise I learned a lot of facts about the Obama administration and how truly ineffectual and center-right Obama’s policies were, as told by Silva. The Pakistan bombings, Lack of diversity in senior Obama staff positions, centrality of Obamacare that did more to boost Aetna’s stock value than really democratize health care for Americans, and the Obama’s Bill Cosby-ish remarks in the past towards black civilians on needing to “pull up their pants” , “stop watching too much tv” , “stop looting”, and just “pick themselves up by their bootstraps “.
Yikes.
Also Silva goes into depth why Hillary’s campaign was doomed to begin with and how Trumps campaign was the pinnacle of a colorblind but hella racist movement. Now looking back it’s obvious to see, but it’s remarkable how Silva, days after Trumps election, could see it plain as day.
I’ll have to finish the notes for this book later on but 4/5 stars. This book should really be a documentary or docuseries instead of a book but I appreciate it nonetheless
This book feels more like a sociology textbook than a reading. Each chapter poses a question, summarizes the survey cases conducted by Silva, and at the end of each chapter Silva presents his conclusions on whether or not his study supports the hypothetical question raised. In Chapter two for example, Silva explores the many ways white people voice their dissent for AntiRacist policies “under the guise of colorblindness”. Many white subjects are asked about their views on affirmative action and Silva analyzes the typical talking points of these white people and makes the argument that the tactics and language of white self-proclaimed “progressives” are often employed to soften the racist or prejudiced beliefs that they implicitly have towards black people and affirmative action.
It started off as very fascinating, as a black person, to get to “peek into” the mindset of white liberals and/or moderate people and get a sociologist’s perspective on what their coded language means — honestly it felt like “decoding” white people, LOL. But I’m not sure if this is necessarily a book that could lend itself to broader discussion. By that I mean, the book kind of just says “These findings show that white people say this but actually mean this—-“ there’s really no room for debate or discourse. In reading these survey accounts, I found myself thinking about the Youtube channel Jubilee and how they do a fantastic job of holding segments like “Middle Ground” and “Do All [insert race] think the same?” with the same intentions as Silva but in a much more open panel format. I think compartmentalizing his research in a textbook-like book with little background explanation of the people, and structure of the surveys/studies hurt the book’s credibility actually. I think this information would have been better presented in a documentary or video series so we can see and hear and interpret the subjects and experimental results for ourselves.
Chapter 10 was also probably the most anticipated chapter of the book. It’s the Obama chapter, and it seeks to explain why we went from an Obamerica to a Trump’s America and what that really says about society. To my surprise I learned a lot of facts about the Obama administration and how truly ineffectual and center-right Obama’s policies were, as told by Silva. The Pakistan bombings, Lack of diversity in senior Obama staff positions, centrality of Obamacare that did more to boost Aetna’s stock value than really democratize health care for Americans, and the Obama’s Bill Cosby-ish remarks in the past towards black civilians on needing to “pull up their pants” , “stop watching too much tv” , “stop looting”, and just “pick themselves up by their bootstraps “.
Yikes.
Also Silva goes into depth why Hillary’s campaign was doomed to begin with and how Trumps campaign was the pinnacle of a colorblind but hella racist movement. Now looking back it’s obvious to see, but it’s remarkable how Silva, days after Trumps election, could see it plain as day.
I’ll have to finish the notes for this book later on but 4/5 stars. This book should really be a documentary or docuseries instead of a book but I appreciate it nonetheless