Copyright © Meghan Burke 2019

The right of Meghan Burke to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2019 by Polity Press

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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2441-9 (hardback)

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2442-6 (paperback)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Burke, Meghan A., author.

Title: Colorblind racism / Meghan Burke.

Other titles: Colourblind racism

Description: Medford, MA : Polity Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018010022 (print) | LCCN 2018015216 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509524457 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509524419 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509524426 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: United States--Race relations. | Race awareness--United States. | Racism--United States.

Classification: LCC E185.61 (ebook) | LCC E185.61 .B9555 2018 (print) | DDC 305.800973--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010022

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Americans’ relationship with racism is an anxious one. Few can deny the realities of our racial past, given the histories of slavery, conquest, Jim Crow, and the Ku Klux Klan. And yet few want to acknowledge the realities of our racial present: deep segregation in our neighborhoods and schools, disparities in wealth and policing, and so much more. Even fewer are willing to explore their own complicity in racial inequalities; many will say that the thing they most fear being called is racist. And so, many reply to the simple claim that black lives matter by saying instead that all lives matter – intentionally or otherwise burying the very need to assert that race matters. After all, most of us don’t want it to matter – we deeply cherish the ideal of a society where individual qualities are what make or break a person, and don’t know what to do with the reality that this is not the society in which we live.

Colorblind racism is fundamentally about denying the reality of ongoing racism, and/or the impact that historical forms of racism still has on the present. It’s an ideology – a “common sense” way of looking at the world that explains what we see around us – ongoing advantages for white people and barriers and violence toward people of color. It’s ideological because it makes these realities too neat and clean – some people don’t work hard enough, aren’t respectful, don’t have the right values, etc. And it’s ideological because it takes race and racism off the table for these considerations; it won’t let us recognize race and racism because to do so would radically change the way so many of us make sense of the world. It would also change the way we see our country, our schools, our workplaces, and our selves.

However, once we can get over this hurdle, we can see why we should, and must, pay attention to race and racism. We can see not only the deep barriers and pain that racism causes for those disadvantaged by it, but also ways, even if seemingly small, that we might be able to leverage some of our own personal and institutional power to make things better. This is difficult work, which many of us do not want to do, lest we come to reckon with our own complicity in an unfair and violent system. But it is necessary, in order for us to realize our shared humanity and to protect our shared futures.

This book will explore this phenomenon of colorblind racism – the ways in which failing to look at race actually advances racism. It will do so first by detailing what is meant by colorblind racism – how it is defined and understood, and how social scientists and others have attempted to study and analyze it. It will then take a deep dive into history, exploring both the history of racism in the United States and how the scholarship around it has both reflected and sought to challenge it. It will also help us to see how we got into this paradox of colorblind racism – a society where removing many overt, state-sponsored forms of racism such as the ‘Jim Crow laws’ did not in fact eradicate racism, but perhaps made it even harder to name and challenge.

After that, it will canvass what we have been able to learn about colorblind racism: how it lives in our institutions, culture, and interpersonal relationships. A vast body of scholarship has demonstrated the existence of its most common ways of talking and thinking about race, and the impact that this has had on our everyday (and every-night) lives. After that, it will also begin to explore the messier terrain of what are often more complicated ways of making sense of the world around us, and how even our scholarship around colorblind racism has prevented us from seeing most fully the dynamics of contemporary racism and, in some cases, resistance to it. The book concludes with details about some new ways of studying what is sometimes called this “new racism,” and some brief notes about how to see and challenge contemporary racism, whether it is colorblind or not.

This book is intended for anyone who has not yet explored this phenomenon deeply – students, teachers, those just entering this area of scholarship, and others. I hope it will also be useful to people who are interested in race and inequality in their communities, schools, places of religious practice, and so on. One short book like this is not meant to tell us everything that is important to know about our racial history or present. However, it is my hope that by scratching this surface, by beginning to see what we often do not wish to see, and by considering how adherence to colorblind ways of talking and thinking about race can be a form of complicity with racism, we will be able to foster new tools for studying and challenging it, and therefore be able to adhere to the ideals that mean so much to us in our world.

Writing a book, while a solitary day-to-day practice, is in the end always a community effort. My first thanks go to Kathleen Korgen, who first recommended me for this project and who has also found a number of other ways to amplify my signal as a scholar and to send opportunities my way. From there, Jonathan Skerrett at Polity has been a pure delight to work with, from his first communication offering the opportunity to write this book, to his helpful feedback on the prospectus, and his sharp eye, coupled with warm support, at each stage of the editorial process. Jonathan, as well as Amy Williams toward the end of her time there, Susan Beer for her careful eye on edits, and the rest of the team at Polity, together with peer reviewers, who gave very helpful feedback, are all to be given credit for this book’s potential to reach students and scholars and for helping to make this book a resource for those interested in contemporary racism.

I would also like to thank the American Sociological Association’s Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline for the grant that first supported a Summit on New Frontiers in the Study of Colorblind Racism, and which brought together leading scholars on colorblindness at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois, in May 2016. This collaboration and exchange of ideas represented the best in scholarly discourse and collegial support. I have made an effort to cite and credit the work of the scholars who participated in these conversations throughout the text.

Also, here on my campus, many thanks go to Shireen Shrock in our grants office for coordinating these funds and many of the logistics for this Summit. This research was further supported by a grant from the Illinois Wesleyan University Artistic and Scholarly Development at our Mellon Center. I would also like to thank Avery Amerson, a bright student who helped me to do some of the early work on gathering and annotating sources of this book; Kate Browne for her helpful suggestions about marketing; as well as every student and colleague who respected the neon orange sign on my door that helped me to preserve my daily hour of writing.

Finally, this book is dedicated with love to IWU Posse 1: Shakira Cruz Gonzalez, Quentin Jackson, Pearlie Leaf, Sean Ly, Jarlai Morris, Michael O’Neill, Shaela Phillips, Taylor Robinson, Dareana Roy, and Lizette Toto.