A review by flowerrunner
Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

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?).