Did America move beyond racism with the election of Barack Obama as the country's first black president last year? Not quite, contends Duke sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. Author of a new book coming out this month, Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and Racial Inequality in Contemporary America (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), Bonilla-Silva argues that race still matters in America despite the symbolism of Obama's election.
"The Obama phenomenon was not a ‘miracle' or an event that denotes how far we have come in the arena of ‘race relations,' but the product of 40 years of racial transition from Jim Crow to the regime I have labeled as the ‘new racism,'" Bonilla-Silva writes in his book. He says despite Obama's election, little has changed among the fundamentals of the racial order. He warns that whites may now use Obama's election as evidence of racial progress when in reality much work remains to be done.
Bonilla-Silva also argues against relying on mainstream politics to promote progress on race relations and political change. Instead, he says, "we must develop individual and collective practices to resist class, race, and gender domination."
"We need new ways of doing politics," he writes, "organizing and working with people to help folks see what is truly going on in the world they live in."