What you talking about America?

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism & Racial Inequality in Contemporary America talks about how people react and respond to questions that involve race and the advantages and disadvantages of some races. In his chapter 8, titled Are Blacks Color Blind, Too, 17 black respondents are interviewed and asked some of the same questions as their white counterparts. Do you believe or agree with affirmative action? Do you think discrimination still exists? Do you believe in interracial relationships? Understandably, the responses were very different than their white counterparts. Although, there were some blacks that did agree with white respondents. One black respondent stated that she didn’t agree with affirmative action and that everyone should have an equal and fair chance. Another respondent said about interracial relationships, “I think people of the same race should stay together instead of interacting.”(Bonilla-Silva, 169). Is this a shock to anyone or are they a product of their times?  Older black respondents mostly agreed with or mirrored their white counterparts, though there were some younger blacks who also agreed as well. But to say that blacks are color blind is a huge misstatement. Because even while some of the black responses were similar to the white respondents, there was always a follow-up answer that said that blacks still experience discrimination and most, if not all, of the black respondents had experienced it at some point in their life.

I know that there are blacks who discriminate against blacks. There are also blacks who discriminate against whites. There are some blacks who are equal opportunity discriminators. But to say that we are a post racial, color blind society is a slap in the face to those who are still fighting for equality among races, of all kinds. Did electing a black president suddenly cure “the illness of racism”? It is my belief that it brought forth hidden views that have been and continue to be frowned upon. I don’t have to agree with or even like some of the views and statements that my friends have on race in America but does that make me racist because some of them happen to be white? Does it make you racist, if you don’t have any close minority friends or close black friends? Does it make you racist because you can name all the black people you know on one hand? No, none of these make you racist, it makes you seem sheltered and culturally handicap. What may make you racist, is you pigeon-holing and labeling all black people as lazy, ghetto, violent, ignorant, and unmotivated because of one bad experience that you had with someone of that race. Until we are able to acknowledge that our views of an entire race are based on what we see, experience, or hear about a race as represented by a very small fraction of that race; then we will never be a society that can accept a person for who they are and not what they look like. Because as many may hope, we will never live in a color blind society because before anything else you and I are Black, White, Latino, Arab, and Indian before anything else.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/racial-discrimination

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/28/for-african-americans-discrimination-is-not-dead/

http://www.ijreview.com/2013/08/75126-buchanan-whites-are-the-only-group-that-you-can-discriminate-against-legally-in-american-now/