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In Still the Big News, Blauner described the American racial hierarchical structure as having two extremes, “one White, and the other Black” (Blauner 2001:190). James Baldwin reasoned that “the fluidity and insecurity of the American status order required the Negro – so that White people would know where the bottom is, a fixed point in the system to which they could not sink” (Blauner 2001:29). Race as a social construction does not just simply classify and describe differences between groups, its critical function is to characterize social relationships between groups that have unequal access to power (Doane 2003). These power differentials result in a system of racial oppression on the basis of the racial hierarchy.

A major tenet of this approach is the relational nature of racial inequality, the relationship between Black oppression and White domination. Sociologists Melvin L. Oliver and Thomas M. Shapiro note that an intimate connection exists between White wealth accumulation and Black poverty, inasmuch as Blacks have had “cumulative disadvantages,” and many Whites have had “cumulative advantages” (1995:5; Lipsitz 2011). Sociologist Joe Feagin further suggests that unjust enrichment of Whites happened as Blacks simultaneously experienced unjust impoverishment (Feagin 2000). Blauner concurs, noting that “White Americans enjoy special privilege in all areas of existence where racial minorities are systematically excluded or disadvantaged: housing and neighborhoods, education, income, and lifestyle” (2001:26).

Yet, in the years since the Civil Rights Movement, there has been no shortage of arguments purporting cultural inferiority as an explanation for the continued subordination of racial minorities despite the removal of formal barriers to their advancement (Glazer and Moynihan 1970). A critical race approach, however, recognizes this as a “reification of culture” in that “culture is treated as a thing unto itself, divorced from the material and social conditions in which it is anchored.” Scholars who espouse this position neglect the fact that “the culture of poor and marginalized groups does not exist in a vacuum.” Often it arises as a response to the social conditions with which they are confronted (Steinberg 1998; Liebow 2003).

For example, the 1968 Kerner Commission Report prepared in response to the rioting in Black ghettos throughout the country “identified ‘White racism’ as a prime reality of American society and the major underlying cause of ghetto unrest” (Blauner 2001:197). Yet, for many, that notion is absurd. Slavery was over a long time ago. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 guaranteed Blacks equality under the law, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 reinstated their voting rights. Some might say White racism can’t be blamed for everything.

Motivated in part by this conundrum, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, in his book Racism Without Racists, sought to answer two questions: “How is it possible to have such a tremendous degree of racial inequality in a society in which race is no longer relevant? And how did Whites attempt to explain this difference?” His conceptualization of racism as taking a new form, which he defined as colorblind racism that allows Whites to attribute the contemporary status of Blacks to factors other than race, is critical because it allowed him to notice subtleties in racial speech and explanations that were not espoused in explicitly racial terms. To illustrate, let’s take one of the tenets of “old-fashioned racism,” a belief in justifiable racial discrimination in areas such as employment and higher education (Schuman et al. 1998). A respondent in his study was asked whether “minority students should be provided unique opportunities to be admitted into universities.” She responded:

I don’t think that they should be provided with unique opportunities. I think that they should have the same opportunities as everyone else. You know, it’s up to them to meet the standards and whatever that’s required for entrance into universities or whatever. I don’t think that just because they’re a minority that they should, you know, not meet the requirements, you know. (Bonilla-Silva 2003a:31)

This response under the conceptualization of racism in its “old-fashioned” form would have been recognized as anti-racist since it does not espouse a belief in justifiable racial discrimination in areas in higher education – rather, it seems committed to egalitarian ideals, i.e. equal opportunity for both groups.

However, colorblind racist ideology engages in blaming the victim in an indirect way. It allows Whites to appear to be committed to equality via the assertion of egalitarian values, while simultaneously ignoring the social reality / discrimination underlying Blacks’ social position and purporting an equal playing field. Hence, if Bonilla-Silva had defined racism in old-fashioned terms as being evidenced by (1) a belief in racial superiority, (2) a belief in sanctioned racial segregation, and (3) a belief in justifiable racial discrimination in areas such as employment and higher education, he would have concluded that racism no longer exists and that other factors besides racism must be responsible for students’ resistance to leveling the playing field for minorities in college admissions (Schuman et al. 1998).

In the article “‘I am Not a Racist but … ’: Mapping White College Students’ Racial Ideology in the USA,” by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Tyrone Forman (2000), the co-authors describe how colorblind rhetoric contributes to the maintenance of a racialized social system that allows notions of “culture” rather than structure to uphold White supremacy in contemporary discourse (Hunter and Robinson 2016):

Colorblind racism allows Whites to appear not racist (“I believe in equality”), preserve their privileged status (“Discrimination ended in the sixties!”), blame Blacks for their lower status (“If you guys just work hard!”), and criticize any institutional approach – such as affirmative action – that attempts to ameliorate racial inequality (“Reverse discrimination!”). Hence, the task of progressive social analysts is to blow the whistle on colorblind racism. We must unmask colorblind racists by showing how their views, arguments, and lifestyles are (White) colorcoded. (Bonilla Silva and Forman 2000:78)

Given the power of metaphors in “shaping how we make sense of the world and what we value and privilege” (Cammett 2014), it is no wonder that, in the wake of civil rights reforms, the definition of racism itself is apparently now open to interpretation and negotiation.

Central to this negotiation is the reduction of racism from the institutional to the individual (Esposito and Murphy 2010). Institutional racism “requires legal policies of structural change, and enforcement of civil rights laws and race-conscious remedies” (Doane 2006), all of which have traditionally run counter to conservative – and, increasingly, liberal – social policy and political interests. Racism as individual behavior, however, “requires only condemnation and perhaps punishment of individual actors,” with no cost to those whose broader political interests may comport with the spirit of that individual act, other than a “vague commitment to ‘tolerance’” (ibid.). Further, with the role of power defined out of racism, it becomes possible to conceive of “reverse racism,” with Whites now viewed as victims of intolerant Blacks. This inversion is central to challenges to the remedial policies that resulted from the Civil Rights Movement, including affirmative action (Doane 2006; Mayrl and Saperstein 2013), and almost necessarily requires an understanding of racial wellbeing as zero-sum.

A complementary pillar of this negotiation is an open embrace of colorblindness, a principle rhetorically – and, of course, selectively – attributed to Martin Luther King Jr. When King is invoked, it almost complements appeals to “stop looking at race” and focus on individual effort and merit: a defense of historical White economic and social advantages wrapped in an acknowledgement of racial equality. Blacks’ complaints of racism or race-conscious appeals for institutional change are then written off as “playing the race card” or “oversensitivity.” By delegitimizing the claim to pursue equality, since American society has already ostensibly achieved it, opponents can argue for the formal elimination of civil rights gains from the past 60 years (Cokorinos 2003).

When and how these racialized frames emerge, and the effect that they have in shaping debates or stirring national conversations, is no accident. During and since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, well-funded foundations and think-tanks have been central in shaping public discourse on social and economic policies, both by advancing colorblind approaches to policies, and by reframing the concept of racism itself to include any racially conscious act. This neutralizes challenges to the traditional racialized social hierarchy, by “minimizing the extent of inequality, marginalizing claims of subordinate groups, and moving to make dominant group understandings normative for the larger society,” and, in turn, allows for the framing of White Americans as victims of post-1960s progressive policies (Doane 2006).