Frames Of Color-Blind Racism Summary

Silva’s Frames of Color-Blind Racism provide the logic used by governmental leaders to explain the place dominance has in a society. In addition, the frames demonstrate how dominance is managed and maintained in a society. Abstract Liberalism, Naturalization, Cultural Racism, and Minimization of Racism are the four frames that Silva introduces. Since Anti-racialism, as defined by Goldberg is opposing the categorizing of people according to their outward characteristics, Goldberg’s frames Naturalization and Cultural Racism do not support anti-racialism. Naturalization makes it possible to deny racism by attributing racist behavior to occurrences that are said to happen naturally e.g. white and blacks do not live in integrated neighborhoods because
These frames are a part of “systemic racism.” Our legislators can use abstract liberalism to avoid doing anything tangible to redress the effects of racism. “While everyone should have equal opportunity” they might say, “We cannot discriminate against or White citizens to make up for what happened to African Americans over four hundred years ago.” It sounds good to acknowledge that all Americans are entitled to equal rights, however, nothing is really being proposed to support black citizens recover what was withheld from them. Fair housing policies can be explained away by holding the opinion that people of like races want to be together. In other words, segregation is a natural occurrence that the government need not interfere in. Through the years our law enforcement officers have operated in the cultural racism frame e.g. black men are violent. Attitudes based on that “frame” is the basis for the recent killings of black men around the country. Minimization of racism removes the urgency for dealing with systemic racism, when leaders believe either minorities are no longer being discriminated against or the incidence is lesser that it was in the