(In)visibility Blues: The Paradox of Institutional Racism

Abstract

In this article, we demonstrate how the taken-for-granted, inner-workings of culture can become implicated in the (in)visibility of minority members. We seek to illuminate ways in which institutions may unwittingly facilitate (in)visibility through their organizational habitus. We begin by providing further evidence of invisibility and visibility as real and commonly experienced psychosocial phenomena among minorities within predominantly white, institutional settings. In particular, we argue that a minority's inconspicuousness can be simultaneously fused together with one's conspicuousness to form what we call racial=ethnic (in)visibility. This study employs focus-group data collected from a sample of administrators and faculty from elite K-12 independent (private) schools, an institution that admittedly has been slow to make cultural change in its racial=ethnic ideologies and practices.Since the ratification of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many American institutions (i.e., formal organizations, such as government bureaus, corporations, hospitals, and schools) have sought-either by A special debt is owed to Karl Alexander for reviewing an earlier version of this manuscript. We are also grateful for the invaluable research assistance of Shelly Brown,

The Invisibility of Race: A Pragmatic Approximation to the Concept

“…Scholars argue that even though overt racism has diminished, everyday racism has increased through individual practices [1,2,5]. Bonilla-Silva [2] calls this color-blindness a form of racism that functions without racists but one that protects the status quo and maintains the current racial hierarchy.…”

“…As Mills [9] noted, most majorities do see minorities, but they can live as though these minorities are invisible. This new type of racism has resulted in significant negative consequences for ethnic/racial minorities, particularly for blacks, causing social distancing, which often leads to the experience of marginalization [2,5], where ethnic/racial minorities come to the realization that they are not being recognized because of prejudice and racism; therefore they are invisible [2]. Anderson Franklin [2] has elaborated a grounded-theoretical model of racial/ethnic invisibility.…”

“…However, as the sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva [1] explains, racism is still a problem in today's society; a new form has emerged, morphed into more insidious expressions of racial discrimination that take place at the individual level, in face-to-face interactions: now you see black people, now you don't see them [1]. As a result, minorities are becoming more and more invisible [2,3,4,5]. The invisibility, as the great sociologist W.E.B.…”

“…Another manifestation of racism, as McDonald [5] defines it, is conspicuous visibility, or hypervisibility. Hypervisibility occurs when racial/ethnic minorities are exposed as unique "others" [5].…”

“…Hypervisibility occurs when racial/ethnic minorities are exposed as unique "others" [5]. The authors argue that minorities' experiences as targets of racism fused both invisibility and hypervisibility to form what they defined as invisibility [5].…”