Color-Blind Racism In Post-Racial America Summary

In Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s lecture on “The Sweet/Sour Taste of Color-Blind Racism in Post-Racial America” he argues that in current times racism still plays a key role in America, but now racism is more subtle and nuanced than it used to be. He argues while there are still some instances of the Jim Crow like injustices, for instance police brutality, that the new institution is appears to be, “subtle, institutional, and seemingly non-racial”. For instance, to prove this point he recalls an experience he had a Macy’s were the store clerks repeatedly came up to him asking him if he needed any help. And even though he admits this might sound non-racial when you first hear it because it sounds like the clerks are treating him nicely, when I thought about it and reflected on my experiences at a store, I
He believes that with education, communities working together, as well as social movements that focus on the normative racial discrimination, in time and with lots of hard work, we can undo the system of racism. Finally, at the end of his lecture he asked the audience for questions, and one of the most notable ones to me was how students can change universities as institutions that fight against inequality based on race. His response to this question was simple, that students should take charge and hit while the iron is hot rather than going to administrators. He explained that generally administrators don’t do anything to solve racial problems because they claim that racism is an outside institution and thus cannot be eliminated from the school until it fails to exist outside of the education system (he also said that administrators are also likely to tell you that they will create a group to look into and then get back to you…which never usually amounts to anything because there are already numerous case studies of racism that are not acted