Beyond Color-blindness: (Re) Theorizing Racial Ideology

Abstract

The study of color-blind racial ideology has made a significant contribution to the understanding of contemporary racism through its elaboration of the dominant racial ideology—a worldview grounded in the claim that race no longer “matters” as an obstacle to success in a “postracial” United States. Despite, or perhaps as a result of this success, the study of color-blind racial ideology has in many ways become stagnant. Following a critique of the current state of theorizing color-blindness, I strive to lay the foundation for a broader framework for understanding racial ideology. In this article, I undertake three core tasks: first, to present a general framework for understanding racial ideologies as fluid and dynamic constructions that are linked to a racial system; second, to outline how color-blind racial ideology is evolving and adapting in response to political challenges and changing social conditions; and finally, to discuss challenges to the hegemony of color-blindness and to propose an agenda for research on the future direction of racial ideology.

Racial Ideology or Racial Ignorance? An Alternative Theory of Racial Cognition

“…Proponents find central questions about how and why racial ideologies work with "material force" to reinforce white domination remain unanswered (Bonilla-Silva 2015a:78; Hughey et al 2015). Because users can sidestep CBT's external anchor in "racialized social systems," many overlook the concrete social relations from which racial ideologies emerge and infer ideologies are the source of persistent inequality (Burke 2016;Doane 2017). These patterns clear the way for studies that characterize whites as passive, unwitting agents overcome by ideology, rather than possessive defenders of white power, privilege, and wealth.…”

“…As a theory of racial cognition, TRI anchors the epistemological dimensions of social life in "materialist roots" (Burke 2016:103;Doane 2017;Hughey et al 2015), linking racial cognition and related action to the ebb-and-flow of everyday life, institutions, and broader history. TRI highlights how racial reproduction is supported by recurrent mechanisms of knowledge evasion and resistance.…”

“Maybe it’s … skin colour?” How race-ethnicity and gender function in consumers’ formation of classification styles of cultural content

“…As discussions of diversity tend to revolve around socially marked cultural genres such as hip-hop, turning the focus towards considerably white and male cultural products increases our understanding of how, through classification processes, the consumption of "unmarked" cultural genres can (albeit unintentionally) facilitate cultural dominance (Brekhus 2015). The relative incoherence between the ideal-typical sorts and the discursive data from the interviews found in the latter three classification styles can be explained by the continued functioning of a colour-blind racial ideology that retains the ethno-racial status-quo in both the Netherlands (Essed and Hoving 2015) and the United States (Doane 2017). This is despite discursive differences regarding the discussion of race-ethnicity that vary between contexts.…”

Towards a global theory of colorblindness: Comparing colorblind racial ideology in France and the United States

“…In an era of colorblindness, mentioning that one race matters, if all have equality, is thought to disadvantage other racial groups. This reinterpretation ignores the fact that because racism persists, Black lives are undervalued (Burke, ; Doane, ).…”

“…This reinterpretation ignores the fact that because racism persists, Black lives are undervalued (Burke, 2017;Doane, 2017).…”