Racism without Racists

Color-Blind Racism
and the Persistence of
Racial Inequality in America

Fourth Edition

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

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 2

The New Racism

The U.S. Racial Structure Since the 1960s

INTRODUCTION

T he white commonsense view on racial matters is that racists are few

and far between, that discrimination1 has all but disappeared since the
1960s, and that most whites are color blind. This view, which emerged
in the 1970s, has gone viral with the election of Barack Obama as presi-
dent in 2008. Whites seem to be collectively shouting, “We have a black
president, so we are finally beyond race!” (see chapter 10 for a discus-
sion on Obama, the new racism, and color blindness). This new common
sense is not totally without foundation (e.g., traditional racial practices
and exclusion as well as Jim Crow–based racist beliefs have decreased in
significance), but it is ultimately false. What has happened is that white
supremacy in the United States (i.e., the racial structure of America) has
changed. Today “new racism” practices have emerged that are more
sophisticated and subtle than those typical of the Jim Crow era. Yet, as I
will argue, these practices are as effective as the old ones in maintaining
the racial status quo. In this chapter, I trace the evolution of these new
structures of racial domination to show how racial inequality is perpetu-
ated in a color-blind world. I begin this chapter with a brief description of
how this new racial structure (the new racism) came about. Against this
backdrop, I survey the evidence of how black-white racial inequality is
produced and reproduced in the United States in four areas: social, politi-
cal, social control, and economic. The evidence is perused from 1960 until
the present with the goal of examining the mechanisms and practices that
keep minorities “in their place.” I conclude the chapter with a discussion

25

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 26 Chapter 2

of some of the social, political, and legal repercussions of the new racial
structure of America.
The argument that race and racism have “decreased in significance” in
contemporary America was made prominent in the late 1970s by black
sociologist William Julius Wilson.2 This view is consistent with survey
data on white attitudes since the early 1960s3 as well as with many demo-
graphic and economic studies comparing the status of whites and blacks
in terms of income, occupations, health, and education that suggest that a
remarkable reduction in racial inequality has occurred in America.4
A smaller number of social scientists, on the other hand, believe that
race continues to play a role similar to the one it played in the past.5 For
these authors, little has changed in America in terms of racism and there
is a general pessimism in the prospects of changing the racial status of mi-
norities. Although this is a minority viewpoint in academia, it represents
the perception of many members of minority communities, especially of
the black community.
These opinions about the changing import of race and racism in the
United States are based on a narrowly defined notion of racism. For these
analysts, racism is fundamentally an ideological or attitudinal phenom-
enon. In contrast, as I stated in the previous chapter, I regard racism
as a structure, that is, as a network of social relations at social, political,
economic, and ideological levels that shapes the life chances of the vari-
ous races. What social scientists define as racism is conceptualized in this
framework as racial ideology. Racism (racial ideology) helps to glue and,
at the same time, organize the nature and character of race relations in a
society. From this vantage point, rather than arguing about whether the
significance of race has declined, increased, or not changed at all, the issue
at hand is assessing if a transformation has occurred in the racial structure
of the United States. It is my contention that despite the profound changes
that occurred in the 1960s, a new racial structure—the new racism for
short—is operating, which accounts for the persistence of racial inequal-
ity.
The elements that comprise this new racial structure are

1. the increasingly covert nature of racial discourse and racial practices;

2. the avoidance of racial terminology and the ever-growing claim by
whites that they experience “reverse racism”;
3. the elaboration of a racial agenda over political matters that eschews
direct racial references;
4. the invisibility of most mechanisms to reproduce racial inequality;
and, finally,
5. the rearticulation of some racial practices characteristic of the Jim
Crow period of race relations.

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 The New Racism 27

I begin this chapter with a brief description of how this new racial
structure (new racism) came about. Against this backdrop, I survey the
evidence of how black-white racial inequality is produced and repro-
duced in the United States in several areas: social, political, economic, and
ideological. The evidence is perused from 1960 until the present with the
goal of examining the mechanisms and practices that keep minorities “in
their place.” I conclude the chapter with a discussion of some of the social,
political, and legal repercussions of the new racial structure of America.
Before I move forward, I must state one important caveat. Although
I hold that the dominant form of racism now practiced is a subtle one,
this does not mean I am blind to the vulgar explicit racism now in vogue
among the “Tea Party” and others on the right. Racial regimes may
change, but that transformation is never complete and remnants of the
old-fashioned Jim Crow racism are clearly resurgent. This resurgence
is important and clearly influences the life chances of people of color;
however, I contend that it is not the core of the system and the practices
responsible for reproducing racial domination today.

THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW RACIAL STRUCTURE IN THE 1960s

Blacks were kept in a subordinate position during the Jim Crow period
of race relations through a variety of bluntly racist practices. At the eco-
nomic level, blacks were restricted to menial jobs by the joint effort of
planters, corporations, and unions. Hence it is not surprising that in 1890
87 percent of blacks worked as either agricultural workers or domes-
tics or in personal service (see table 2.1 below). In the South, they were
mostly tenant farmers and this was accomplished through vagrancy and
apprenticeship laws, restrictions on the right of blacks to buy land and
to work in certain occupations, debt imprisonment, and the convict lease
system.6 In the North, the exclusionary practices of managers and unions

Table 2.1. Distribution of Blacks by Occupations, 1890

Industry Number Percent
Agriculture 1,728,325 56.2
Domestic and Personal Service 956,754 31.1
Manufacturing 208,374 6.8
Trade and Transportation 145,717 4.8
Professionals 33,994 1.1
Source: Lorenzo J. Greene and Carter Godwin Woodson, The Negro Wage Earner (Washington, D.C.: As-
sociation for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1930), p. 37, table 10.

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 28 Chapter 2

kept them in unskilled occupations with very little chance for occupa-
tional mobility.7 Thus, rather than a split labor market, “most blacks in
the South between 1865 and 1900 were not yet in a position to compete
directly with whites for the same occupations.”8 As tenant workers, they
were “reduced to the status of a serf” and cheated by white landlords in a
variety of ways. As industrial workers in the North, they were located at
the bottom of the well with little chance for occupational mobility.
The economic position of blacks did not change much until well into
the twentieth century. It was not until after WWI, which created a labor
shortage in the industrial North, that many blacks migrated from the
South and joined the ranks of the working class.9 Yet this transition from
agricultural to industrial jobs did not break the Jim Crow pattern of em-
ployment. Spero and Harris contend that although there was no wage
discrimination between blacks and whites in the North, blacks earned
less than whites because they were concentrated in low-skill jobs: The jobs
into which the Negroes went were usually those that native Americans
and Americanized foreign-born white labor did not want. This largely
accounts for the almost-spectacular increase in the proportion of Negroes
in the iron and steel foundries, where the work is dirty, hot, and unpleas-
ant.10
At the social level, the rules of the new racial order emerged slowly
given that the War and the Reconstruction (1865–1877) shook the rules
of racial engagement and challenged the place of blacks in society. The
transition from slavery to Jim Crow was characterized by inconsistency
and no generally accepted code of racial mores. Slavery did not require
either a very sophisticated and specific set of rules to preserve “social
distance” or an elaborate racial ideology (racism) because of the thorough
differences of status among the races. But as blacks became free, they
posed a threat to white supremacy. Slowly but surely segregationist laws
and practices emerged after 1865 and were solidified by the 1880s with
the enactment of Jim Crow laws all over the South. These laws involved
the disenfranchisement of blacks, racial separation in public accommoda-
tions, segregation in housing, schools, the workplace, and in other areas
to insure white supremacy. C. Vann Woodward describes the extent of
these laws in the following manner:

The extremes to which caste penalties and separation were carried in parts of
the South could hardly find a counterpart short of the latitudes of India and
South Africa. . . . Curfew . . . separate phone booths . . . separate books and
storage of books in public schools . . . South Carolina separated the mulatto
caste of prostitutes, and even “Ray Stannard Baker found Jim Crow Bibles
for Negro witnesses in Atlanta and Jim Crow elevators for Negro passengers
in Atlanta buildings.”11

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 The New Racism 29

Politically, blacks were virtually disenfranchised in the South and were

almost totally dependent on white politicians in the North. In the South,
poll taxes, literacy tests, and outright coercive strategies restrained their
political options. In the North, black politicians were subordinate to white
ethnic political machineries and did not represent much for their own
communities.12
In terms of social control, blacks in the South were regulated by the
actions of individual whites, violent racist organizations such as the Ku
Klux Klan, mob violence in the form of lynching, and the lack of en-
forcement of the laws of the land by state agencies. In the North, blacks
suffered less from these practices largely because they were extremely
residentially segregated and, thus, did not pose a “threat” to whites.
However, whenever blacks “crossed the line,” whites erupted in violence
such as during the race riots of the late 1910s.13
Finally, in consonance with the above practices, racial ideology during
the Jim Crow period of race relations was explicitly racist. Without ques-
tion, most whites believed that minorities were intellectually and morally
inferior, that they should be kept apart, and that whites should not mix
with any of them.14
The apartheid that blacks15 experienced in the United States was
predicated on (1) keeping them in rural areas, mostly in the South, (2)
maintaining them as agricultural workers, and (3) excluding them from
the political process. However, as blacks successfully challenged their
socioeconomic position by migrating initially from rural areas to urban
areas in the South and later to the North and West, by pushing themselves
by whatever means necessary into nonagricultural occupations, and
by developing political organizations and movements like Garveyism,
the NAACP, CORE, the National Urban League, the Southern Regional
Council, and the CIC, the infrastructure of racial apartheid began to
crumble.16 Among the other factors leading to the abolition of the segre-
gationist order, the most significant were the participation of blacks in
World War I and World War II, which patently underscored the contra-
diction between fighting for freedom abroad and lacking it at home; the
Cold War, which made it a necessity to eliminate overt discrimination at
home in order to sell the United States as the champion of democracy; and
a number of judicial decisions, legislative acts, and presidential decrees
that transpired since the 1940s.17
The aforementioned political, social, and economic processes occurred
in a fast-changing U.S. political economy. From 1920 until 1940, the North
expanded its industrialization process at a furious pace. After WWII the
South industrialized at an even more dramatic pace. Many Northern in-
dustries moved South in search of lower production costs and have con-
tinued doing so.18 Hence today over 70 percent of the Southern labor force

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 30 Chapter 2

is engaged in nonagricultural pursuits. This industrialization process

provided the pull factor for blacks to move from the rural South, which,
coupled with the push factor of escaping the violence of Jim Crow and the
demise in agricultural jobs, created the optimal conditions for the “great
migration.”19 Although the 1.8 million blacks who migrated between
1910 and 1940 from the South to the North and West faced severe racial
practices and economic constraints from white workers, labor unions, and
whites in general, the North provided them expanded opportunities in all
realms of life. This great migration continued between 1940 and 1970 as
4.4 million more blacks left the South.20
The impact of this migration was enormous on the overall condition
of blacks. By 1970 blacks were geographically diffused throughout the
United States; 80 percent were urban dwellers and had achieved a higher
rate of urbanization than whites; they had increased their education and
developed a small but thriving middle class; social and political organiza-
tions flourished and became training ground for many black leaders; by
virtue of their new geographic dispersion, blacks increasingly became a
national group; and they were able to develop a new consciousness, new
attitudes, and a new view on how to deal with racial discrimination, char-
acterized by Gunnar Myrdal as the “protest motive.”21
Even in the South, the social, political, and cultural condition of blacks
improved somewhat with the early process of industrialization. And, af-
ter the 1960s, even their economic condition changed as the top business
elite abandoned all-out discrimination because of the adverse economic
effects created by violence and protest demonstrations. According to Mel-
vin M. Lehman, this pattern was reinforced by northern industrial capital
that had penetrated the South, making the “southern system of brutality,
social discrimination, and legalized (or extra-legalized) persecution . . .
more and more economically and politically dysfunctional.”22
To be clear, neither urbanization nor industrialization were nonracial
“rational” progressive forces in themselves. Both northern and southern
capitalists accommodated racial practices in their hiring, company poli-
cies, and daily activities. In the case of southern capitalists, industrializa-
tion became a necessity with the progressive decline of its agricultural
economy. Although southern capitalists were able to maintain Jim Crow
and industrialization for over fifty years (1890s to 1950s), by the mid-
1950s it became clear that they could not coexist peacefully. Blacks in the
North had acquired enough political muscle to push the federal govern-
ment to do something about their civil rights. After the Brown decision of
1954 and its rejection by most of the South, instability and protests spread
all over the South. Such instability was anathema for attracting capital.
Therefore, the business elite, reluctantly and gradually, developed an
accommodation with the new policies. In the North, the accommoda-
tion began much earlier in the 1920s, 1930s, and particularly after WWII,

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 The New Racism 31

and involved the subordinate incorporation of blacks in industry. This

accommodation, although progressive, maintained the view that blacks
were inferior workers and kept them in the bottom of the occupational
hierarchy. The views of northern managers were typified by a “progres-
sive” manager who in the 1950s commented that “Negroes, basically and
as a group, with only rare exceptions, are not as well trained for higher
skills and jobs as whites. They appear to be excellent for work, usually
unskilled, that requires stamina and brawn—and little else. They are un-
reliable and cannot adjust to the demands of the factory.”23 Views like this
continue to plague American capitalists in the post-1960 period.24 What
industrialization and urbanization did for blacks was to provide a new
context for struggle that made the southern Jim Crow system impossible
to maintain in the face of black opposition. (Interested parties should see
the similarities between this case in the United States and the collapse of
Apartheid in South Africa. There the enlightened segment of the business
elite decided to meet with leaders of the ANC in the late 1980s to discuss
a possible solution to the sociopolitical crisis. They did so because of the
pressure of international economic sanctions, anti-divestment campaigns,
and boycotts to South African products.25 Hence, for the elite, that matter
was not black and white but green!)
These demographic, social, political, and economic factors and the ac-
tions of blacks made change almost inevitable. But ripe conditions are
not enough to change any structural order. Hence, the racial order had to
be directly challenged if it was going to be effectively transformed. That
was the role fulfilled by the civil rights movement and the other forms of
mass protest by blacks (so-called race riots) that took place in the 1960s
and 1970s. Organized and spontaneous challenges were the catalysts that
brought down overt segregation.
Yet the demise of Jim Crow did not mean the end of racism in America.
Many analysts noted that “racism” (as usually defined) and race rela-
tions acquired instead a new character since the 1960s. They point to
the increasingly covert nature of racial discourse and racial practices;
the avoidance of racial terminology in racial conflicts by whites; and the
elaboration of a racial agenda over political matters (e.g., state interven-
tion, individual rights, responsibility, etc.) that eschews direct racial ref-
erences.26 In the following sections I describe the typical discriminatory
practices of the post–civil rights era.

INTERRACIAL SOCIAL INTERACTION

DURING THE NEW RACISM PERIOD

In all areas of social life blacks and whites remain mostly separate and
disturbingly unequal. A close examination of research in the areas of

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 32 Chapter 2

housing, education, and everyday social interaction reveals startlingly

little progress since the 1960s.

Residential Segregation
U.S. Census 2000 data indicates that residential segregation has declined
for the third straight decade. During the 1990s, segregation declined in 272
metropolitan statistical areas and increased in 19 areas; however, black-
white segregation remained high in the older Rust-Belt metropolitan
areas and increased during the 1990s in the suburbs. Furthermore, blacks
are still more segregated than any other racial or ethnic group—segrega-
tion that they have experienced longer than any other group—and are
segregated at every income level.27 The black poor, in particular, suffer
the greatest degree of “hypersegregation” from the rest of America, and
this pattern of extreme isolation has remained the same through the last
one-third century. In their book, American Apartheid, Massey and Denton
measure the block-level indices of residential segregation of thirty met-
ropolitan areas from 1940 to 1980. The index of residential segregation
for the North is around 80 and for the South around 70 (an index of 100
indicates total segregation and one of 0, no segregation at all). Even with
a steady decline in most of the metropolitan areas included, levels are still
extremely high, especially in the northern cities. In addition the level of
black isolation has improved little since the 1970s. The average level of
isolation was close to 66 percent in 1980 and no metropolitan area had an
isolation index under 50 percent. In 2000, national black isolation was 65
percent and remained 80 percent or higher in cities such as Detroit, New-
ark, and Chicago. Due to higher white flight of families with children to
segregated suburbs, white children are the most segregated (68.3 percent)
by neighborhood.28
Some demographic data suggests that residential segregation is de-
clining. U.S. Census 2010 data indicates that residential segregation has
declined for the fourth straight decade. Although many of these types
of indices are used as if they were sophisticated measures, the reality
is otherwise, as these indices essentially rely on “simple numerical and
percentage comparisons of the numbers and proportions of persons in
each race/ethnicity group in a population.”29 Scholars have pointed to the
problem of unmeasured segregation because of the scale of census tracts.
More fundamentally, however, I suggest that “racial contacts” do not
mean substantive integration, since there are significant forms of racism
compatible with “physical closeness.” The apparent “integration” noted
in some settings may have more to do with poverty and falling incomes
of poor whites or simply the restructuring of urban space than as a result
of meaningful racial integration.

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 The New Racism 33

The costs to blacks of residential segregation are high; they are likely
to pay more for housing in a limited market, likely to have lower-quality
housing, less likely to own their housing, likely to live in areas where
employment is difficult to find, and likely to have to contend with pre-
maturely depreciated housing.30 Segregation makes it unlikely that poor
blacks will be able to escape poverty. For instance, 72 percent of black
Americans born into the lowest economic quartile of neighborhoods re-
side in poor areas as adults, compared with only 40 percent of whites.31
Furthermore, race is also the most salient predictor of intergenerational
downward residential mobility, with “the odds of downward mobility 3.6
times as large as the odds for whites.”32 The big difference is in how seg-
regation is accomplished today. In the Jim Crow era the housing industry
used overtly discriminatory practices such as real estate agents employ-
ing outright refusal or subterfuge to avoid renting or selling to black
customers, federal government redlining policies, overtly discriminatory
insurance and lending practices, and racially restrictive covenants on
housing deeds in order to maintain segregated communities. In contrast,
in the post–civil rights era, covert behaviors have replaced these practices
and maintained the same outcome—separate communities.
Many studies have detailed the obstacles that minorities face from gov-
ernment agencies, real estate agents, money lenders, and white residents
that continue to limit their housing options.33 Housing audits done in
many locations reveal that blacks and Latinos are denied available hous-
ing from 35 to 75 percent of the time depending on the city in question.34
Turner, Struyk, and Yinger, in reporting the results of the Department of
Housing and Urban Development’s Housing Discrimination Study, found
that blacks and Latinos experienced discrimination in approximately half
of their efforts to rent or buy housing. Yinger, in a separate article, re-
ported that the average incidence of discrimination for audit studies is 47
percent. These housing studies have shown that when paired with similar
white counterparts, blacks are likely to be shown fewer apartments, be
quoted higher rents, or offered worse conditions, and be steered to spe-
cific neighborhoods. Using a similar procedure in a 2000 audit of housing
racial practices in twenty-three U.S. metropolitan areas, Turner and col-
leagues report that although there was improvement since the 1989 audit,
whites continued to be given more information about potential rentals
and were shown more available housing units in both the rental and
sales markets. The study also showed a significant increase in geographic
steering that perpetuated segregation, predominantly through real estate
agent editorializing.35
In one study of lending practices done by the Kentucky Human Rights
Commission, black and white testers with equal characteristics requested
conventional mortgages for the same housing from ten of the top lending

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 34 Chapter 2

institutions in Louisville, and while there were cases in which discrimi-

nation was apparent (blacks having trouble getting appointments, etc.),
in the eighty-five visits made to inquire about loans, none of the black
testers (with one exception) knew they were being discriminated against,
though all of them were. Blacks were given less information, less encour-
agement to return and apply for the loan, fewer helpful hints as to how
to successfully obtain a loan, and differential treatment in prequalify-
ing—sometimes being told they would not qualify when whites of the
same profile were told they would. Similar studies done in Chicago and
New York revealed discrimination in seven out of ten lending institu-
tions in Chicago and in the one institution studied in New York City.36
National data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act shows that black
applicants are denied mortgages at least twice as frequently as whites
of the same income and gender. Finally, a study by the Federal Reserve
Bank of Boston found that after controlling for a number of variables,
blacks on average are denied loans 60 percent more times than whites.37
In an overview of mortgage loan practices during the 1990s, Turner and
Skidmore report that blacks received less information from loan officers,
were quoted higher interest rates, and suffered higher loan denial rates.
Much of the gain in home ownership among African Americans in the
1990s was achieved through subprime lenders who offer usurious rates,
due in large part to the continued practice of redlining of black neighbor-
hoods by mainstream lenders. It is these same subprime mortgages that
have caused the recent mortgage crisis to impact minorities more severely
than whites.38
The racial practices of banks did not proceed in a color-blind fashion,
as black neighborhoods were actively targeted for higher-interest loans.
For instance, Wells Fargo recently settled a lawsuit with the NAACP for
$175 million. The suit alleged that customers were steered toward higher-
interest subprime loans—called “ghetto loans” for “mud people” within
the organization. Although Wells Fargo has been a high-profile fall guy
for this racist practice, the evidence suggests that banks routinely engage
in discriminatory lending. Further, this lending is not based upon blacks
having worse economic profiles, as higher-income blacks were more
likely to be steered toward subprime loans.39

Education
The history of black-white education in this country is one of substantive
inequities maintained through public institutions. While today many of
the traditional barriers to black advancement have been outlawed, the sit-
uation is by no means one of equity. Although scholars have documented

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 The New Racism 35

the narrowing of the gap in the quantity of education attained by blacks

and whites, little has been said about the persisting gap in the quality of
education received.40 Still remaining (and in some cases worsening) high
levels of de facto segregation are at least partly to blame for the gap in
quality. However, tracking, differential assignment to special education,
and other informal school practices are important factors too.
Over 30 percent of black students attend schools that are 95 percent
or more nonwhite and over 30 percent of white students attend schools
that are less than 95 percent white. In the 1998–1999 school year, 36.5
percent of blacks attended schools that were at least 90 percent nonwhite
and 70.2 percent of blacks attended schools that were at least 50 percent
nonwhite. Despite some progress during the period immediately after
1964, the level of school segregation for black students remains relatively
high in all regions and has deteriorated in the Northeast and Midwest
regions. The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University reports a trend
beginning in 1986 toward resegregation of U.S. schools. As a consequence
of resegregation during the decade of the 1990s, U.S. schools were more
segregated in the 2000–2001 school year than in 1970. The relevance of
this fact is that, as Gary Orfield has noted, “Segregated schools are still
profoundly unequal.” Inner-city minority schools, in sharp contrast to
white suburban schools, lack decent buildings, are overcrowded, have
outdated equipment—if they have equipment at all—do not have enough
textbooks for their students, lack library resources, are technologically
behind, and pay their teaching and administrative staff less, which pro-
duces, despite exceptions, a low level of morale. According to Jonathon
Kozol these “savage inequalities,” have been directly related to lower
reading achievement and learning attained by black students and their
limited computer skills.41
In integrated schools, blacks still have to contend with discrimina-
tory practices. Oakes and her coauthors have found clear evidence of
discriminatory practices in tracking within schools. Whites (and Asians)
are considerably (and statistically significantly) more likely to be placed
in the academic track than comparably achieving African American and
Latino students.42 Another study found that of the 1985 students who
took the SAT, 65.1 percent of blacks compared to 81.2 percent of whites
were enrolled in an academic track. No wonder black students tend to
score lower on the SAT than white students. (As of early 2013, a new
book by Amanda E. Lewis and John B. Diamond titled Despite the Best
Intentions: Why Racial Inequality Thrives in Good Schools is about to be
published by Oxford documenting exactly what happens in so-called
integrated schools to minority students. So check this book out when it
hits the bookstores.)

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 36 Chapter 2

Other Areas of Social Life

A brief survey of research in other areas of social life reveals persistent
discrimination, unequal treatment, and, in some cases, exclusion. In terms
of intermarriage, blacks are less likely than any other racial or ethnic
group to intermarry. This is one of the few areas where whites still openly
express reservations in surveys.43 In 1993, only 0.4 percent of all new mar-
riages were black-white unions.44 Furthermore, while a recent publication
from the Pew Research Center stated that “a record 14.6 percent of all new
marriages in the United States were between spouses of a different race or
ethnicity,” only 9 percent of whites married nonwhites in 2008.45 Not only
are over 90 percent of whites marrying other whites, but also additional
research shows that intermarriage rates among Latinos and Asians has
actually decreased since 1980.46 In addition to whites’ negative attitudes
toward interracial relationships, the high level of residential segregation
and the limited friendships between blacks and whites contribute to this
low rate of intermarriage. Research by Jackman and Crane showed that
only 9.4 percent of whites could name one good black friend. This led
them to conclude that very few whites “could rightly claim that ‘some of
their best friends’ are black.”47
In the realm of everyday life, several recent works have attempted to
examine the daily experiences blacks have with racism. In his interviews
of middle-class blacks who have supposedly “made it,” Ellis Cose re-
peatedly discovered a sense among these “successful blacks” that they
were being continually blocked and constrained in ways that make it
impossible to hold anyone accountable. Black executives, lawyers, and
bankers repeatedly reported a feeling of being second class, of having a
constant nagging sense that they were being treated differently despite
doing everything they were supposed to do. In one series of examples
Cose reports experiences of job tracking in which blacks are only given
those jobs that dealt with “minority concerns” and that were seen as ei-
ther unimportant or undesirable. Cose quotes many of his interviewees
discussing the feeling of being susceptible to being “stripped of status at
a moment’s notice” by a store clerk, a cab driver, the waiter at a restau-
rant, a security guard, and so on.48 Feagin and McKinney point out that
the chronic stress and “justified rage” resulting from these mistreatments
costs African Americans psychologically, creates loss of personal energy,
and affects their physical health.49
In 1981 Howard Schuman and his coauthors replicated a 1950 study
of restaurants in New York’s Upper East Side and found a substantial
amount of discrimination remained. Similar to the housing audits, the
discrimination was of a subtle nature. Black patrons were refused use of
the coatroom, they were seated in either isolated places or undesirable

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 The New Racism 37

locations like near the kitchen, orders were reversed, and service workers
were flustered by a black presence. A recent review of the literature on
discrimination in the service industry shows that these practices continue.
People of color are referred to using code words such as “Canadian,”
“cousins,” “moolies,” “black tops,” and even “white people” to signal
among servers that they are undesirable patrons. The problem doesn’t
end at nasty names, however, with servers unwilling to serve black pa-
trons, extended waiting periods when tables are open, and instructions
from managers to treat blacks poorly.50 Importantly, much of the evidence
of this type of behavior comes from reports from waiters, and people of
color subjected to these racial practices are left to wonder if this behavior
is indeed race-based. Lawrence Otis Graham reports in his book Member
of the Club that in ten of New York’s best restaurants he and his friends
visited, they were stared at, mistaken for restaurant workers, seated in
terrible spots, and buffered so as to avoid proximity to whites in most of
them. Actually, Otis Graham reports that they were treated reasonably
well in only two of the ten restaurants, one Russian and the other French.
The suits recently filed against Denny’s, Shoney’s, and the International
House of Pancakes seem to suggest that restaurants’ racial practices dis-
criminate against blacks of all class backgrounds.51
Joe R. Feagin and Melvin P. Sikes also document the dense network of
discriminatory practices confronted by middle-class blacks in everyday life.
Although they correctly point out that blacks face discriminatory practices
that range from overt and violent to covert and gentle, the latter seem to be
prevalent. In public spaces the discriminatory behavior described by black
interviewees included poor service, special requirements applied only to
them, surveillance in stores, being ignored at retail stores selling expensive
commodities, receiving the worst accommodations in restaurants or hotels,
being confused constantly with menial workers, along with the usual but
seemingly less frequent epithets and overtly racist behavior.
More recently, a body of work on racial “microaggressions” chronicles
how minorities can be subtly put down in many cross-race interactions.
These may be a proto-typical example of the way the new racism oper-
ates, as microaggressions can be crimes of omission (i.e., an environment
only displays symbols such as photos or reading material relevant to the
dominant white culture) or of commission, as when one implies that a mi-
nority is unqualified for a job or admission to school, and is only present
because of affirmative action. Importantly, the content of these messages
is almost always devoid of overt racial appeals, allowing the perpetrator
to maintain that they are neutral. This makes it very difficult for people
of color to respond to this type of aggression. These microagressions can
have a serious affect on the lives of people of color, as this kind of hostility
has been tied to a number of negative health outcomes.52

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 38 Chapter 2

The Continuing Racial Economic Inequality

The economic life of blacks has always been influenced by structured
racial inequality. A substantial body of literature on white-black employ-
ment differences has documented the influence of labor-market discrimi-
nation, wage differentials, occupational segmentation, as well as income
and wealth inequalities and explaining racially differential economic out-
comes.53 Despite well-documented disparities between blacks and whites,
many social scientists focused their attention on the growth of the black
middle class. Some of them projected the “success” of this segment to the
entire community, creating an image of general economic progress. To be
sure, blacks have experienced significant progress in several areas of their
economic life over the past four decades (the economic standing of black
women vis-à-vis white women, the opening of jobs that were reserved
for whites, the development of the significant middle class, etc.). Yet their
overall economic situation relative to whites has not advanced much.54

THE POLITICAL STRUCTURE OF THE NEW RACIAL ORDER

Almost all commentators on black politics recognize that blacks became

serious participants in “legitimate” politics very recently.55 But since 1965,
as blacks were able to register and vote, their representation in local and
national political structures has increased dramatically. The data on this
point is fairly clear. Whereas in 1970 there were only 1,460 black elected
officials at all levels of the U.S. political system, by 1989 the total had
increased to 7,226, and in the early 1990s their number reached 8,000.56
Moreover, by 1990 “blacks held elective positions in every state except
Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota.”57 In Congress there has been an
increase in the number of African American elected officials from ten, or
1.9 percent of the members of Congress in 1970, to twenty-six, or 5.8 per-
cent of the total in 1991. The 113th Congress has been hailed as the most
diverse in history. However, the Senate has a total of five people of color,
leaving the senate an overwhelmingly white body, with white men being
68 percent of the total in the house.58 Furthermore, a point that I make
below, among the people of color in Congress, several are antiminority
minorities such as Florida’s Marco Rubio and South Carolina’s Tim Scott.
As is the case with conservatives such as Supreme Court justice Clarence
Thomas, these politicians are out of touch with the views, goals, and as-
pirations of most people of color.
Overall, the changes in this area give the impression of substantial
progress and the beginning of a truly pluralist America.59 The new po-
litical space that blacks have gained has without question provided them

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 The New Racism 39

with some benefits. Today blacks have some direct—although small—in-

fluence in policies, have sensitized white politicians about the needs of
blacks not only through their policy suggestions but also simply by their
presence, and have established a direct link between government and citi-
zenship. In terms of the cities where blacks have been elected as mayors,
some commentators have pointed out that “African American–owned
businesses expand, the rate of small business failure declines, and there
are significant increases in both the number and proportions of African
Americans employed in city government.”60 But despite these accom-
plishments, blacks remain a subordinate group in the political system.
What follows is a discussion of the current limitations that blacks face in
the political system.

Structural Barriers to the Election of Black Politicians

Racial gerrymandering, multimember legislative districts, election run-
offs, annexation of predominantly white areas, at-large district elections,
and anti-single-shot devices (disallowing concentrating votes in one or
two candidates in cities using at-large elections) have become standard
practices to disenfranchise blacks since 1965. All of these tactics attempt
to either minimize the number of majority-black election districts or
neutralize their electoral impact by diluting the black vote.61 Except for
gerrymandering (drawing districts so that minority coalitions waste
their votes), the mechanisms have the facade of expanding democracy
and being race-neutral. For instance, at-large districts were initially de-
veloped to weaken political machines by diluting the ethnic vote, but in
recent times have become a way of diluting the black vote in cities.62 All
these procedures are effective because black representation is still de-
pendent upon the existence of black districts. In the 2000 elections, un-
fair voting practices that turned away many black voters were reported
in over a dozen U.S. states and similar voting irregularities in the 2004
elections disenfranchised voters in predominantly black communities.
Similarly, in the 2012 elections right-wing groups attacked the voting
rights of blacks through voter ID laws in a number of states. Since 2003,
thirty-four states have implemented voter ID laws63 that are similar to
the poll taxes and literacy requirements under Jim Crow. Although it
is claimed these laws are race-neutral, research from the University of
Delaware showed that racial animus was the best predictor of support
for the law, regardless of political party. Some of the legislatures, such
as those in Florida and Pennsylvania, implemented these laws despite
openly claiming that voter fraud was not a problem, but they hoped that
their implementation would suppress black turnout, giving the election
to Romney.64

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 40 Chapter 2

Furthermore, the very structure of Congress and the rules of the game
impose limits on what blacks can accomplish there even in the best of all
possible scenarios. As John C. Berg has argued,

Congress has an internal structure, and positions in this structure give an

advantage to those who hold them, but this advantage is biased; it is not
equally available to the powerless and the powerful. Throughout America’s
brief history, when representatives of oppressed groups have used the ac-
commodationist strategy, that strategy has failed. They have climbed pa-
tiently up the ladder of congressional seniority and committee position, only
to find that they could not use their new power to effect the changes most
needed by their constituents.65

Underrepresentation among Elected and Appointed Officials

The best proof that there are still structural barriers to the election of
blacks is the fact that despite their burgeoning rate of voter registration
and participation since 1965, black officials still represent 1 to 2 percent of all
elected officials.66 Even more significant, blacks are substantially under-
represented even in places where they comprise 30 percent or more of
the entire population.67 The majority of cities with a population of fifty
thousand or greater with black mayors in 2004 had more than a 40 percent
black population.68 Only three of the twelve largest cities with a 25 percent
or more black population have black mayors. New York, Los Angeles,
Chicago, Houston, and Dallas, which had black mayors in the 1990s, no
longer do. Black appointees tend to be concentrated in the civil rights
and social welfare bureaucracies and, in many of the remaining cases, are
“sanitized” blacks like Justice Thomas or General Colin Powell.
Why are blacks so underrepresented? Because of the historical ten-
dency of whites of only voting for or appointing white candidates. Thus
the election and appointment of blacks seem to be circumscribed to lo-
cales in which blacks constitute a substantial segment of the population
(40 percent or more) or to black candidates who “mainstream” or show
“moderation.”69
Although many whites would argue that this trend has ended with
President Obama, the evidence suggests that Obama’s ascendency to the
presidency is in line with the historical trajectory of black politicians. See
chapter 10 for an extended discussion of the Obama phenomenon.

The Limited Possibilities of Elected and Appointed Officials

What is the overall impact of black elected officials and appointees for the
black community at large? In Congress, because of their relatively small
numbers, blacks have a very limited role in creating policy. At best, they

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 The New Racism 41

can shape aspects of legislation to soften the impact on poor minority

communities and, so far, they have been able to curtail anti–civil rights
legislation. The record of black appointees, who have been historically
few, suggests that they tend to have an even more limited role in shap-
ing policy. In addition, there is a disturbing trend of appointing antiblack
blacks (a trend begun by President Carter), which fits well into our new
racism argument.70 By appointing conservative blacks to certain positions,
the political system is symbolically integrated while maintaining policies
and politics that keep blacks “in their place.”

The Limited Impact of Elected Black Mayors

Elected black mayors are in a political quandary because of the decline
of political machines. This decline reduces significantly the “power” of
the mayoral position since political machines allowed mayors in the past
to dispense resources to their constituencies. Given that these political
machines have been replaced by nonpartisan bureaucratic political struc-
tures, the likelihood of a black mayor being able to use his or her position
for distributing resources has been seriously eroded.71 Moreover, the fi-
nancial crisis of cities limits drastically the projects that mayors can carry
out as well as their overall independence from the dominant. Further-
more, since cities are controlled by the interests of white business elites,
elected black mayors are increasingly captive to pro-growth policies
based on making cities conducive to business investments. These poli-
cies usually imply neglecting the most pressing needs of racial minori-
ties and the poor.72 Moreover, despite the progressive impact that many
have noted in the black community (appointment of blacks to various
city positions, increase in the rate of black municipal employees, higher
responsiveness to the needs of the poor, etc.), most of the benefits have
not accrued to the black masses. More importantly, the election of black
mayors, unlike those from white ethnic groups in the past, has not led to
the institutionalization of “black control in the realms of public and pri-
vate decision making.”73 Thus black mayors become “political managers”
of cities in which the present economic, social, and political arrangements
still benefit whites at large, and the elite in particular.

Electoral Participation as Entrapment

The subordinate incorporation of blacks into electoral politics has reduced
their options to effect meaningful social change. Historically, blacks have
advanced in this country through overt protest politics.74 Hence the exten-
sion of universal suffrage to blacks has been a double-edged sword. On
the one hand, it is one of the most enduring victories of the civil rights

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 42 Chapter 2

movement but on the other hand, it is progressively becoming an obstacle

for further black progress. Because the number of blacks in significant
decision-making bodies (House, Senate, etc.) is minuscule, because whites
still vote largely for white candidates, and because blacks do not have
enough economic and social resources to utilize formal political rights as
effectively as whites, electoral politics are restricting the political options
of blacks in the United States.
An example of how electoral politics restrict the options of blacks is
the current political impasse experienced by blacks. They cannot vote
Republican since that party has become increasingly a pro-white party;
they cannot fully trust the Democratic party since it has shown in recent
times a tremendous degree of ambivalence in its commitment to blacks as
evidenced in the racialized discourse of many leaders on welfare, crime,
government spending, and affirmative action; and the third-party option,
advocated by many progressives, is still a farfetched idea with a very
limited impact among black urban voters. The way out of this impasse
seems to be through a return to mass protest but it is precisely that type of
political activity that is incompatible with electoral politics. Hence what
blacks need is what electoral participation limits.
Obama’s election is perhaps the best illustration of this point. Since his
election, many black politicians have complained that he has done little
to further their legislative agenda. For instance, Maxine Waters, former
chairperson of the Congressional Black Caucus, criticized Obama for
ignoring the needs of black communities. These claims are backed up by
empirical research, as the political scientist Daniel Gillian shows Obama
has spoken less about race issues than any president since 1961.75 Further-
more, it is clear that Obama’s ability to address racial issues head on has
been hugely constrained by the trap of electoral politics. The huge public
outcries after his extremely mild comments on Henry Louis Gates’s im-
proper arrest and Trayvon Martin’s murder show how quickly the media
and public opinion turn against Obama for appearing concerned about
racial profiling. (For a full discussion of Obama’s place in the new racism
order, see chapter 10.)

”KEEPING THEM IN THEIR PLACE”:

THE SOCIAL CONTROL OF BLACKS SINCE THE 1960s

All domination is ultimately maintained through social-control strate-

gies. For example, during slavery, whites used the whip, overseers, night
patrols, and other highly repressive practices along with a number of
paternalistic ones to keep blacks in their place. After slavery was abol-
ished, whites felt threatened by free blacks; hence, very strict written and

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 The New Racism 43

unwritten rules of racial contact (the Jim Crow laws) were developed to
specify “the place” of blacks in the new environment of “freedom.” And,
as insurance, lynching and other terroristic forms of social control were
used to guarantee white supremacy. In contrast, as the Jim Crow practices
have subsided, the control of blacks has been chiefly attained through
state agencies (police, criminal court system, FBI). Marable describes the
new system of control as follows:

The informal, vigilante-inspired techniques to suppress Blacks were no lon-

ger practical. Therefore, beginning with the Great Depression, and especially
after 1945, white racists began to rely almost exclusively on the state appara-
tus to carry out the battle for white supremacy. Blacks charged with crimes
would receive longer sentences than whites convicted of similar crimes. The
police forces of municipal and metropolitan areas received a carte blanche in
their daily acts of brutality against Blacks. The Federal and state government
carefully monitored Blacks who advocated any kind of social change. Most
important, capital punishment was used as a weapon against Blacks charged
and convicted of major crimes. The criminal justice system, in short, became
a modern instrument to perpetuate white hegemony. Extra-legal lynchings
were replaced by “legal lynchings” and capital punishment.76

In the following sections of this chapter, I review the available data to

see how well it fits Marable’s interpretation of the contemporary system
of control.

The State as Enforcer of Racial Order

The United States has the highest per capita incarcerated population in
the world.77 The incarceration rate has risen 600 percent in the past thirty
years,78 and race influences nearly every aspect of incarceration including
arrest rates, conviction rates, the probability of post-incarceration employ-
ment, educational opportunities, and marriage outcomes. One in three
black males born today can expect to spend some portion of his life behind
bars, and Latinos have seen a 43 percent rise in their incarceration rates since
1990.79 Data on arrest rates shows that the contrast between black and white
arrest rates since 1950 has been striking. The black arrest rate increased
throughout this period, reaching almost one hundred per one thousand by
1978 compared to thirty-five per one thousand for whites.80 The 1989 data
suggests that the arrest rate for blacks has stabilized at around eighty to
ninety per one thousand.81 The implications for the black community are
astounding. Eight to nine percent of all blacks are arrested every year. This
means that a substantial number of black families experience the “services”
of the criminal justice system every year, directly (arrested or incarcerated)
as well as indirectly (visit to jails, stops by police, etc.).

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 44 Chapter 2

In terms of how many blacks are incarcerated, we find a pattern similar

to their arrest rates. Although blacks have always been overrepresented
in the inmate population, as can be seen in table 2.2, this overrepresenta-
tion has skyrocketed since 1960. By 1980, the incarceration rate of blacks
was six times that of whites.
The statistics for black youth are even more depressing. Black youth
aged ten to seventeen, who constitute 15 percent of American youth,
account for 25 percent of arrests (Bishop 2005). Race differences exist at
almost every stage of the juvenile justice process: black youth suffer racial
profiling by police, higher rates of arrest, detention, and court referral,
are charged with more serious offenses, and are more likely to be placed
in larger public correctional facilities in contrast to small private group
homes, foster homes, and drug and alcohol treatment centers.82 “Almost
one in four Black men aged 20 to 30 are under the supervision of the crim-
inal justice system any given day.”83 The rate of incarceration of blacks
for criminal offenses is over eight times greater than that of whites, with

Table 2.2. Percentage of U.S. Residents and Men in Prison or Jail, by Age, Race, and
Education, 1980, 2000
All U.S. Residents, Men Aged 18–65 1980 2000
All U.S. Residents 0.2% 0.7%

Men Aged 18–65

All 0.7 2.1
White 0.4 1.0
Hispanic 1.6 3.3
Black 3.0 7.9

Men Aged 20–40

White 0.6 1.6
Hispanic 2.1 4.6
Black 4.8 11.5

Non-college Men Aged 20–40

White 0.9 3.2
Hispanic 2.6 5.5
Black 6.0 17.0

High-School-Dropout Men Aged 20–40

White 2.1 6.7
Hispanic 3.2 6.0
Black 10.7 32.4
Source: Bruce Western, “The Prison Boom and the Decline of American Citizenship,” Society 44, no. 5
(2007): 30–36.

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 The New Racism 45

1 in 20 black men, in contrast to 1 in 180 white men, in prison.84 Hence,

given these statistics, it is not surprising that today there are more blacks
aged twenty to twenty-nine under the supervision of the criminal justice
system (incarcerated, on parole, or on probation) than in college.
This dramatic increase in black incarceration has been attributed to
legislative changes in the penal codes and the “get tough” attitude in law
enforcement fueled by white fear of black crime. Furthermore, the fact
that blacks are disproportionately convicted and receive longer sentences
than whites for similar crimes contributes to their overrepresentation
among the penal population. For example, “according to the Federal
Judicial Center, in 1990 the average sentences for blacks on weapons and
drug charges were 49 percent longer than those for whites who had com-
mitted and been convicted of the same crimes—and that disparity has
been rising over time.”85 Self-report data suggest about 14 percent of U.S.
illegal drug users are black; however, blacks constitute 35 percent of those
arrested, 55 percent of those convicted, and 74 percent of those incarcer-
ated for drug possession.86

Official State Brutality against Blacks

Police departments grew exponentially after the 1960s, particularly
in large metropolitan areas with large concentrations of blacks.87 This
growth has been related by various studies to black urban mobilization
and rebellion in the 1960s.88 Another way of measuring the impact of po-
lice departments on the life of blacks is surveying how blacks and whites
rate police performance. Rosentraub and Harlow, in an article reviewing
surveys on the attitudes of blacks and whites toward the police from
1960 through 1981, found that blacks consistently view the police in a
much more negative light than do whites. Despite attempts in the 1970s
and 1980s to reduce the friction between black communities and police
departments by hiring more black police officers and, in some cases, even
hiring black chiefs of police, “there has been little change in the attitudes
of blacks toward the police, especially when the attitudes of black respon-
dents are compared to those of white respondents.” Blacks are also more
inclined to believe that police misconduct occurs frequently and is com-
mon in their city and neighborhood.89
The level of police force used with blacks has always been excessive.
However, since the police have become the more direct enforcer of the so-
cial control of blacks since the 1960s, their level of violence against blacks
has skyrocketed. For example, in 1975 46 percent of all the people killed by
the police in official action were black.90 That situation has not changed much
since. Robert Smith reported recently that of the people killed by the
police, over half are black; the police usually claim that when they killed

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 46 Chapter 2

blacks it was “accidental” because they thought that the victim was armed
although in fact the victims were unarmed in 75 percent of the cases; there
was an increase in the 1980s in the use of deadly force by the police and
the only ameliorating factor was the election of a sensitive mayor in a city;
and in the aftermath of the King verdict, 87 percent of civilian victims of
police brutality reported in the newspapers of fifteen American major cit-
ies were black, and 93 percent of the officers involved were white. Even
the Rodney King incident, probably the most celebrated and visible case
of police brutality in recent times, may hide the real extent of police bru-
tality in America. While Americans became exhausted from watching the
TV image of Rodney King being beaten by police officers, they did not
know that during the 1980s, “18 citizens of Los Angeles died as a result
of LAPD’s use of the choke hold; 16 of them reportedly black,” indicating
that police brutality in Los Angeles was a common practice.91
More recently, on January 1, 2009, Bay Area Rapid Transit District po-
lice officers shot and killed Oscar Grant III. At the time of the shooting
several videos show Mr. Grant was unarmed, lying face down, with an of-
ficer kneeling on his back. Mr. Grant was hardly in a position to struggle.
Another officer who was on the scene has admitted under oath that Grant
posed no threat to himself or “any other officer.” Yet, this did not stop of-
ficer Mehserle from firing, point blank, into Grant’s back. The bullet then
ripped through Grant’s body, ricocheted, and traveled back into him,
lodging in his lung. Rather than seeking immediate medical care for Mr.
Grant, they handcuffed him as he lay dying. Then the officers began grab-
bing cell-phones and video cameras from other travelers in the station, in
an unfruitful attempt to destroy evidence of the crime.92 This story did not
immediately become national news. Rather, after videos of the attack ap-
peared on YouTube, bloggers publicized the issue and local papers began
to take notice. The police department was not terribly worried about the
attack because they did not take the offending officer into custody until
thirteen days later.93 Officer Mehserle was convicted of involuntary man-
slaughter, but served just eleven months in prison.94 To put it mildly, this
is an extremely lenient sentence for a brazen, videotaped assassination.
A more mundane form of police brutality in the form of “stop and
frisk” laws in New York city daily terrorize young people of color. Os-
tensibly aimed at finding weapons and drugs, nearly 90 percent of the
stops are black and brown youth. This is despite the fact that, according
to antiracist activist Tim Wise,95 who is white,

White high school students are seven times more likely than blacks to have
used cocaine; eight times more likely to have smoked crack; ten times more
likely to have used LSD and seven times more likely to have used heroin. . . .
What’s more, white youth ages 12-17 are more likely to sell drugs: 34 percent

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 The New Racism 47

more likely, in fact than their black counterparts. And it is white youth who
are twice as likely to binge drink, and nearly twice as likely as blacks to drive
drunk. And white males are twice as likely to bring a weapon to school as
are black males.

The state-sanctioned abuse of blacks under the cover of enforcing drug

laws is clearly not aimed at stopping drug distribution. Rather, it is a
manifestation of how supposedly race-neutral laws can be applied at the
discretion of officers and departments to control the black population.
Since the late 1990s, a new form of state-sanctioned social control has
been written into law in numerous states. Promoted by the right-wing
American Legislative Exchange Council, these so-called stand your
ground or castle doctrine laws institutionalize racist vigilantism. Made fa-
mous through the tragic murder of Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old
black kid walking to his home, these laws are applied in a racist manner.
Twenty states have adopted these laws since 2000 and murder rates in
these states, counter to the expectations of advocates for these laws, have
increased by 8 percent.96 And, as one would expect in a racialized society,
these laws have not been applied in a racially neutral manner:

Whites who kill blacks in Stand Your Ground states are far more likely to be
found justified in their killings. In non–Stand Your Ground states, whites are
250 percent more likely to be found justified in killing a black person than a
white person who kills another white person; in Stand Your Ground states,
that number jumps to 354 percent.97

Capital Punishment as a Modern Form of Lynching

The raw statistics on capital punishment seem to indicate racial bias prima
facie: Of 3,984 people lawfully executed since 1930 (until 1980), 2,113 were
black, over half of the total, almost five times the proportion of blacks in
the population as a whole.98 Blacks, who have made up about 13 percent of
the population, have accounted for 52 percent of people executed in state
or federal jurisdictions since 1930.99 However, social scientific research
on racial sentencing has produced mixed results. A number of authors
have found a bias in sentencing,100 but some have claimed that, as legal
factors are taken into account, the bias disappears.101 Yet recent research
has suggested that “discrimination has not declined or disappeared but
simply has become more subtle and difficult to detect.”102 Despite claims
that discrimination has declined in significance, research shows that it
may have simply gone underground. Others have pointed out that the
discrimination experienced by blacks may occur at earlier stages. For
instance, research by Radelet and Pierce suggests that homicides with
white victims and black suspects are more likely to be upgraded to a more

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 48 Chapter 2

aggravated description by prosecutors. Hence, additive and linear mod-

els will tend to miss the effect of race.103
There is a substantial body of research showing that blacks charged of
murdering whites are more likely to be sentenced to death than any other
victim-offender dyad. Similarly, blacks charged of raping white women
also receive the death sentence at a much higher rate. The two tendencies
were confirmed by Spohn in a 1994 article using data for Detroit in 1977
and 1978: “Blacks who sexually assaulted whites faced a greater risk of
incarceration than either blacks or whites who sexually assaulted blacks
or whites who sexually assaulted whites; similarly, blacks who mur-
dered whites received longer sentences than did offenders in the other
two categories.”104 Data from 1976 to 1981, after the Furman statues were
implemented, for the states of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missis-
sippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Virginia on people charged with
homicide indicates that cases involving white victims are more likely to
warrant the death penalty than cases involving black victims. Although
the authors find a black suspect–white victim effect in Florida, Georgia,
and Illinois, they claim that it disappears when they control for severity of
the crime.105 However, the most respected study on this matter carried out
by Professor David C. Baldus to support the claim of Warren McClesky,
a black man convicted of murdering a white police officer in 1978, found
that there was a huge disparity in the imposition of the death penalty in
Georgia.106 The study found that in cases involving white victims and
black defendants the death penalty was imposed 22 percent of the time,
whereas in the white-black dyad, the death penalty was imposed in only
1 percent of the cases. Even after controlling for a number of variables, blacks
were 4.3 times as likely as whites to receive a death sentence.107 In a 1990 review
of twenty-eight studies on death-penalty sentencing, twenty-three of
them found that the fact that victims are white “influences the likelihood
that the defendant will be charged with a capital crime or that death pen-
alty will be imposed.”
It should not surprise anyone that in a racist society, court decisions on
cases involving the death penalty exhibit a race effect. Research on juries
suggests that they tend to be older, more affluent, more educated, more
conviction-prone, and more white than the average in the community.108
Moreover, research on the process of selecting jurors for death-penalty
cases suggests that the voir dire process (questions to select the jury) pro-
duces juries that are pro–death penalty.109 This particular bias has been
found to have a racial effect. Gregory D. Russell, in his The Death Penalty
and Racial Bias: Overturning Supreme Court Assumptions, found indirect
data (exhibited via surrogate measures) of racial bias among death-
qualified jurors. This finding adds to our understanding of why there is

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 The New Racism 49

a differential conviction rate for blacks and whites in cases involving the
death penalty. As Russell explains,

The evidence developed did suggest that juries composed of death-qualified

jurors are more likely to be white, punitive, and authoritarian. Hence, they
are more likely, on this evidence, to exhibit a tendency toward racially biased
decisions. Will every juror or jury act in this manner? Of course not. The
evidence simply suggests the probability that jurors so composed are more
likely than not to be more predisposed to racially biased determinations than
other juries, though the appearance of racial bias is quite idiosyncratic.110

The racial trends observed by research on the application of the death

penalty will not abate any time soon. The 1986 Supreme Court decision
McClesky v. Kemp, for example, stipulated that statistical evidence show-
ing racial discrimination was not enough and argued further that evi-
dence of discrimination would be valid only if the plaintiff could prove
that a state “enacted or maintained the death penalty statute because of an
anticipated racially discriminatory effect.”111 Given the new contours of
the racial order, laws will not be written in ways to overtly discriminate
against minorities. In this legal desert created by the Supreme Court,
unless Congress enacts a law allowing statistical evidence as proof of dis-
crimination, minorities sentenced to death will have no legal recourse of
claiming discrimination. The first attempt to enact such a law (the Racial
Justice Act in 1988) failed miserably in Congress. The second attempt dur-
ing the 1993 discussion of Clinton’s crime bill failed also. Meanwhile, the
number of incarcerated blacks on death row has reached the 40 percent
range.112

High Propensity to Arrest Blacks

Blacks complain that police officers mistreat them, disrespect them, as-
sume that they are criminals, violate their rights on a consistent basis,
and are more violent when dealing with them. Blacks and other minori-
ties are stopped and frisked by police in “alarmingly disproportionate
numbers.”113 Why is it that minorities receive “special treatment” from the
police? Studies on police attitudes and on their socialization suggest that
police officers live in a “cops’ world” and develop a cop mentality. And
that cops’ world is a highly racialized one; minorities are viewed as dan-
gerous, prone to crime, violent, and disrespectful.114 Various studies have
noted that the racist attitudes that police officers exhibit has an impact on
their behavior toward minorities. Furthermore, other studies have sug-
gested that police discretion and demographic bias contribute to the over-
arrest of blacks. Extralegal subjective characteristics such as demeanor,
appearance, and race have been found to influence the decision of police

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 50 Chapter 2

officers to arrest individuals as well as other stages in the individual’s

path through the criminal justice system.115 In terms of demographic bias,
research suggests that because black communities are overpatrolled, the
officers patrolling these areas develop a stereotypical view of their resi-
dents as more likely to commit criminal acts and are more likely to “see”
criminal behavior than in white communities.116
Thus, it is not surprising that blacks are disproportionally arrested com-
pared to whites. It is possible to gauge the level of over-arrest endured by
blacks by comparing the proportion of times that they are described by
victims as the attackers with their arrest rates. Using this procedure, Farai
Chideya contended that

for virtually every type of crime, African-American criminals are arrested at

rates above their commission of the acts. For example, victimization reports
indicated that 33 percent of women who were raped said that their attacker
was black; however, black rape suspects made up fully 43 percent of those
arrested. The disproportionate arrest rate adds to the public perception that
rape is a “black” crime.117

Using these numbers, the rate of over-arrest for blacks in cases of rape is
30 percent. As shocking as this seems to be, the rate for cases where the
victim is white is even higher. Smith, Visher, and Davidson found that
whereas the probability of arrest for cases in which the victim was white
and the suspect black was 0.336, for cases of white suspects and black
victims the probability dropped to 0.107. Blacks represent 65 percent of
those exonerated for rape and half of the exonerations of men convicted of
raping white women, even though less than 10 percent of rapes of white
women are by black men.118
The enormous amount of anecdotal evidence on blacks detained, ha-
rassed, or illegally searched for looking “suspicious” is indicative of the
racial consciousness and practices of white police officers. The following
incidents are just a sample of recent cases of clearly racist policing:

1. In Florida in 1993, after a British tourist was killed, police officers

rounded up black men aged fifteen to twenty-one in Jefferson
County.
2. In 1992, all black men at the State University of New York Oneonta
College were questioned as suspects after a white man was mur-
dered by a black man.
3. Black professors at predominantly white institutions report incidents
of police harassment and even being detained.119 At the University
of Michigan, Professor Aldon Morris was detained by the police
because he was “confused” with a bank robber. He was not released

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 The New Racism 51

until white professors verified that he was indeed a professor, al-

though he had shown the police officers his university identification.
4. In 1990 at Harvard, two black students running for a shuttle bus
were detained after the description of a robbery went out over the
police radio.
5. In 1994, the police department of Ann Arbor, Michigan, released a
description of a serial rapist that fit a substantial proportion of the lo-
cal black population. They later asked over one hundred black men
to “collaborate” with the investigation by giving blood samples to
see if they fit the DNA profile of the rapist.
6. Over four years, a New Jersey man driving from his home to his of-
fice was stopped by police over one hundred times.120
7. The Cambridge police department arrested Dr. Henry Louis Gates
Jr., one of the most high-profile African American scholars in the
county and director of Harvard’s African American Studies Pro-
gram, in his own home when he had committed no crime. A neigh-
bor had called the police on him as he was outside his house because
he had forgotten his keys.

Repression of Black Leaders and the Civil Rights Movement

Leaders of the black movement such as Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X,
Stokely Carmichael, Louis Farrakhan, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale,
Ron Karenga, and Martin Luther King Jr. and organizations such as the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the National As-
sociation for the Advancement of Colored People, Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Black Panthers, the Revolutionary
Action Movement, and the MOVE Organization have been monitored
by the FBI. Of particular significance was the six-year investigation
(from 1962 to 1968) launched by the FBI against Martin Luther King Jr.
given that King, unlike other black leaders of his time, was not advocat-
ing change through radical means. As David Garrow points out, “It is
quite apparent that no other black leader came in for the intensive and
hostile attention that Dr. King was subjected to in the mid-1960s.”121
Although initially the FBI claimed that the surveillance of King and the
SCLC was because communists were involved in the organization—in
this sense, it fitted the FBI organizational prerogatives—it soon delved
into purely private matters of King’s life with the explicit intent of dis-
crediting him. Although many theories have been advanced for why
King was singled out (J. Edgar Hoover’s racism, racism in the bureau,
Hoover’s reaction to King’s public criticism of the bureau in 1961, the
conservatism of the bureau, and Hoover’s as well as other top FBI
agents’ fascination with sexuality), the bottom line was that King, the

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most important black leader of this century, was carefully monitored by

the FBI until his assassination.
The FBI persecution of leaders such as Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X
and their organization, the Nation of Islam, was less hostile and consis-
tent than that of King and the SCLC because they were not mobilizing the
black masses as King was. Only after Malcolm began making overtures to
civil rights leaders and advocating militant political involvement did the
FBI begin paying serious attention to him. After Malcolm’s assassination
in 1965—an assassination in which the FBI was apparently involved—the
FBI launched a special offensive (the COINTELPRO against so-called
black nationalist hate groups) to curb the spread of black nationalism by
any means necessary.122 By 1967, the FBI had over three thousand infor-
mants in black communities as part of this program and was conducting
surveillance and playing “dirty tricks” on SNCC leader Stokely Carmi-
chael and on the Black Panthers.123 The FBI, through a smear campaign
and other techniques, neutralized Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown,
Reverend Charles Koen of the Cairo United Front, and activist-comedian
Dick Gregory.124 Even seemingly less threatening groups such as black
student unions on campuses around the nation were infiltrated by the
FBI. By the time the COINTELPRO became known to the American
people in 1971, radical black organizations had been all but dismantled.
Another area that indicates how social-control agents deal with the
more politically dangerous threats posed by the black community is their
handling of so-called riots. Balbus points out in his analysis of the 1960s
rebellions in Los Angeles, Detroit, and Chicago that “justice” was carried
out very swiftly because the “rioters” were black.

Given that blacks are considered by many, including court authorities, to be

“animals,” and that their violent behavior was viewed by many as confir-
mation of their animality, flagrant violations of formal rationality were far
less delegitimating than they would have been had they been committed
against whites. It is simply the case—and no survey data are necessary to
demonstrate this thesis—that Americans are far more likely to tolerate the
incarceration of blacks for prolonged periods of time under inhuman condi-
tions than they would be to tolerate similar indignities visited on whites.125

The number of people arrested in these rebellions is astounding. For

instance, during the 1965 Watts riot in Los Angeles, four thousand people
were arrested; during the Detroit riot of 1967, 7,200 people were arrested;
during the Chicago riot of 1968 over 2,700 people were arrested; finally,
in the 1992 L.A. rebellion, a staggering 9,456 people were arrested. This
was due to a strategy of wholesale arrests, multiple charging, and extraor-
dinarily high bonds developed with the intent of swiftly “controlling”
riots. In the mid-1960s President Johnson authorized the FBI to expand its

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 The New Racism 53

domestic intelligence, which “led to the designation of countless people

as subversive or radicals in the FBI files.” In addition, Congress passed
the Riot Control Act in 1968, which provided that persons who traveled or
used facilities of interstate commerce with the intent to incite a riot could
be fined ten thousand dollars or incarcerated for five years, or both.126

Post–Civil Rights Social Control and the New Racism

The mechanisms by which blacks experience social control in the con-
temporary period are not overwhelmingly covert. Yet they share with
the previous mechanisms discussed in this paper their invisibility. The
mechanisms to keep blacks in “their place” are rendered invisible in
three ways. First, because the enforcement of the racial order from the
1960s onward has been institutionalized, individual whites can express a
detachment from the racialized way in which social control agencies oper-
ate in America. Second, because these agencies are legally charged with
defending order in society, their actions are deemed neutral and neces-
sary. Thus, it is no surprise that whites consistently support the police
in surveys.127 Finally, the white-dominated media depicts incidents that
seem to indicate that racial bias is endemic to the criminal justice system
as isolated. For example, cases that presumably expose the racial charac-
ter of social-control agencies (e.g., the police beating of Rodney King, the
police killing of Green, the acquittal or lenient sentences received by of-
ficers accused of police brutality, etc.) are viewed as “isolated” incidents
and are separated from the larger social context in which they transpire.
Ultimately, the emergence of the new racism does not mean that racial
violence has disappeared as an enforcer of the racial order. Rather, these
incidents are portrayed as nonracial applications of the law.

THE CONTINUING RACIAL ECONOMIC INEQUALITY

The economic life of African Americans has always been influenced by

structured racial inequality. A substantial body of literature on white-
black employment differences has documented the influence of labor
market discrimination, wage differentials, occupational segmentation, as
well as income and wealth inequalities in explaining racially differential
economic outcomes.128 Despite the well-documented disparities between
blacks and whites, many social scientists have focused their attention on
the growth of the black middle class.129 Some of them have projected the
“success” of this segment to the entire community, creating an image of
general economic progress. To be sure, African Americans have experi-
enced significant progress in several areas of their economic life over the

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 54 Chapter 2

past three decades (the economic standing of black women vis-à-vis white
women, the opening of jobs that were reserved for whites, the develop-
ment of a significant middle class, etc.). Yet their overall situation rela-
tive to whites has not advanced that much.130 The following sections of
this chapter highlight the economic status of blacks and the mechanisms
that structure economic inequality at the economic level in the post–civil
rights period.

Income and Wage Differentials

Studies analyzing differences in median income between blacks and
whites have revealed some convergence; much of it has been attributed
to the rising levels of educational attainment of African Americans, in
particular among younger cohorts as well as affirmative action policies.131
However, the empirical evidence regarding racial convergence in income
is somewhat mixed. Several social scientists have found that the incomes
of African Americans began rapid convergence with whites from World
War II; but during the recession of the early 1970s, African Americans’
income levels began to stagnate and the racial convergence ceased. By the
1990 a substantial black-white earnings gap had reemerged as the black-
white family income ratio reached 0.56, a ratio hardly larger than the 0.55
of 1960. In 2003, the median black family income had only marginally
improved to 61 percent of white median family income. Interestingly,
the decline in blacks’ income vis-à-vis whites has been attributed to the
decline in enforcement of antidiscrimination laws and affirmative action
policies by the federal government. Thus, while blacks made marked ad-
vancement from World War II to the early 1970s, their income relative to
whites has progressed little over the last several decades.
Furthermore, analysts who focus on income convergence tend to mask
serious trends affecting the African American population—like unem-
ployment and underemployment and the decrease in the rate of labor-
force participation—by making their comparisons based on full-time
workers. Darity and Myers astutely observe that the exclusion of African
Americans with zero incomes (i.e., the unemployed and the jobless)
in social scientists’ assessment of income differences between African
Americans and whites masks the persistent racial fault line in economic
life.132 The gap in unemployment between African Americans and whites
increased during the 1970s and the 1980s—the same period in which Af-
rican Americans’ incomes ceased converging with whites.133 Even though
the racial gap in employment decreased during the economic prosperity
of the 1990s, the employment-to-population ratio for black men was 86
percent that of white men and black men were employed seven hours
less per week than whites by 1999. Moreover, employment rates of blacks

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 The New Racism 55

were much lower in some geographical areas. In 2003, only 52 percent of

work-age black men in New York City were employed, “the lowest per-
cent since the Bureau of Labor Statistics begin recording employment to
population ratios in 1979.”134
Income differences reflect to a large extent the different earning poten-
tial of blacks and whites in America. Black males in 1999 earned about
60 percent as much as white males; black females, who had per capita
incomes 90 percent of white females in 1990, saw their incomes drop to 85
percent of white female income in 1999. This vast difference is attributed
to blacks’ lesser educational attainment, lesser rates of return for their
education and their labor-market experience, and their concentration in
the South, all directly related to the racial dynamics of this country.135
Does the difference in earnings disappear when the comparison is blacks
and whites with similar characteristics? The answer is no. Farley and Al-
len carried out such a comparison for 1980 and found the gap for black
men to be 14 percent. Although this gap, known in the literature as the
cost of being black, was better than the 19 percent gap of 1960s, the fact
that the gap grew to 16 percent in 1985 does not give much hope. Thus,
prior to a hasty conclusion that structured racial inequality has declined
significantly based on the fact that the income of full-time male black and
white workers has approached 73 percent in 1986 compared to 43 per-
cent in 1940, we must examine other aspects of their economic life such
as blacks’ occupational distribution in order to provide a more accurate
picture of their economic standing. More recently, Day and Newburger
show that blacks earn less than whites at every educational level and,
similarly, Grodsky and Pager find that even as blacks move up the occu-
pational hierarchy, their income falls further behind their white peers.136

Occupational Mobility and Segmentation

One of the primary reasons why blacks’ economic standing is much
worse than whites is because of occupational race-typing. Although re-
cent occupational data show that African Americans have made substan-
tial progress in obtaining employment in occupational categories from
which they previously were, for all practical purposes, excluded, they are
still overrepresented among unskilled workers and underrepresented in
higher-paying white-collar jobs. In 1960, whereas 60.4 percent of white
men worked in blue-collar jobs, a whopping 76.7 percent of blacks did
so.137 The 2000 U.S. Census shows whites are still more likely than blacks
to be employed in managerial and professional occupations: 35.43 percent
of white males and 40.64 percent of white females compared to 21.65 per-
cent of black males and 31 percent of black females. Blacks, in contrast,
are disproportionately employed in service occupations: 20.23 percent of

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 56 Chapter 2

black males and 26.39 percent of black females compared to 10.85 percent
of white males and 17.03 percent of white females. Within service occupa-
tions, black males are most likely to be employed in building and grounds
cleaning and maintenance; black females, in health, personal, and food
care. Black males are also disproportionately represented in production,
transportation, and material moving (26.17 percent of blacks compared to
17.26 percent of whites). White males are more likely to hold construction
jobs (17.26 percent of whites compared to 12.63 percent of blacks).
Two other factors point to the segmentation experienced by blacks in
America. First, despite the apparent decline in underrepresentation of
African Americans in managerial and professional occupations, those
employed in these occupations have lower earnings than their white
counterparts. Second, while the significance of race as a determinant of
occupational mobility for African American men may have declined dur-
ing the period of 1962 through 1973, other research suggests that their
occupational mobility is less frequent than whites and more restricted in
terms of destination.138 Oliver and Shapiro note that “nearly two out of
five blacks from lower blue-collar backgrounds remain stuck in unskilled
and, for the most part, poorly paid jobs.” Some mainstream researchers
have attributed the racial differences in earnings to the existing educa-
tional gap between blacks and whites. However, Cotton found that racial
differences among those employed in the managerial and professional
occupations could not be explained by educational differences.139 This is
not surprising since research has consistently shown that black men earn
less than white men in almost all occupations.140
Furthermore, as Collins points out, the relative opening of professional
and managerial positions to blacks should not be mistaken for a decline in
racial discrimination. While African Americans have succeeded in nontradi-
tional occupations, their occupational mobility still exhibits a distinct racial
pattern. Several studies have indicated that, for the most part, Jim Crow–
type exclusion discrimination has been replaced with a new web of racial
practices that limits their mobility and affects their everyday performance.
One of the most pervasive of these practices is pigeonholing blacks in some
positions, a practice reminiscent of typecasting blacks for “nigger jobs” dur-
ing Jim Crow. For instance, Collins finds that many African American exec-
utives fill affirmative action, community relations, minority affairs, or public
relations positions that were created during the 1960s and 1970s to respond
to civil rights demands, positions than do not provide much mobility.141

Racial Practices in the Labor Market

Since the early 1960s social scientists have acknowledged that racial
practices in the labor market are important causal factors in explaining

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 The New Racism 57

the differential employment outcomes of blacks and whites. Yet, until

recently, studies on labor-market discrimination assessed discrimination
as the unexplained residual in black and white earnings after controlling
for a number of variables. Although this measure is useful, it tends to un-
derestimate the extent of discrimination by eliminating differences (e.g.,
in education and occupational status) that are themselves the product of
discrimination racial practices.142
Since the 1990s, analysts have relied on a research strategy to directly
assess the impact of discrimination. The technique used to examine labor-
market discrimination is called an “employment audit,” borrowed from
the housing audit strategy, and consists of sending subjects matched in
most characteristics except their race to find jobs. By adopting this ap-
proach, analysts have been able to estimate the extent as well as the form
of discriminatory racial practices minorities endure in the labor market.
Probably the most famous of these studies was one carried out by the
Urban Institute in 1991. It was conducted on randomly selected employ-
ers in San Diego, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., and found that on
average, white testers were significantly favored over black testers. In
20 percent of the audits, blacks were denied job opportunities, and in 31
percent of the audits Latinos were denied job opportunities. In Milwau-
kee, Wisconsin, Pager divided applicant testers with comparable resumes
into four groups: whites without criminal record, whites with criminal
record, blacks without criminal record, and blacks with criminal record.
White applicants with a criminal record (17 percent) were more likely to
be called back for an interview than black applicants without a criminal
record (14 percent).143
Research indicates that blacks are discriminated against at all levels of
the job process. In the search process, they are left behind because most
employers rely on informal social networks to advertise their jobs. And
since blacks are not part of those networks, they are left out in the cold.
Not only does this hinder blacks in their efforts to gain middle-class jobs,
but also, as Royster shows in her book Race and the Invisible Hand, net-
works of gatekeepers maintain white privilege in trade careers as well.
Specifically, she shows how white students in a trade school who have
similar credentials to their black counterparts (in fact, blacks students
in the study are slightly better) are given preference by employers who
clearly wish to hire their “own kind.”144
Furthermore, recent examination of welfare leavers since the 1996
welfare reform laws indicate that white privilege operates even at low-
level service jobs. Employers were less likely to hire black than white
welfare leavers and paid the black welfare leavers they did hire less. At
the job entry level, in addition to the practices mentioned above, blacks
are screened out by tests and the requirement of a high school diploma.

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 58 Chapter 2

These two practices were developed in the late 1950s and 1960s as sub-
stitutes for outright exclusion from jobs and were mentioned in the 1964
Civil Rights Act as practices that could have exclusionary results. They
are discriminatory because the diploma and the tests are not essential to
the job performance.
In terms of job promotion, blacks face a glass ceiling because they are
pigeonholed in dead-end jobs. Research also suggests that blacks’ exclu-
sion from informal social networks restricts their opportunities to demon-
strate criteria for promotion, such as loyalty, sound judgment, and lead-
ership potential. Black professionals are also constrained regarding what
emotions they can express even when confronted with outright racism
in the workplace.145 Moreover, Baldi and McBrier found that increased
minority presence results in a negative effect on blacks. They suggest a
group-threat process may be at work where white managers attempt to
protect white workers in the face of increased minority presence.146

Wealth
The available data on wealth indicates that the disparities in this impor-
tant area are greater than in any other economic area, and they are in-
creasing. Blacks owned only 3 percent of U.S. assets in 2001, even though
they constituted 13 percent of the U.S. population. In 2001, the median
net worth of whites, $120,989, was over 6.3 times that of blacks, which
was only $19,024. Calculation of mean net worth reveals that, in 2001, the
average black family had 17 cents for every dollar of the average white
family. Oliver and Shapiro report that the racial wealth gap increased
from $60,980 in 1998 to $82,663 in 2002. This astounding inequality in
wealth increased in 2009. Although all segments of the population except
for the top 10 percent lost in the 2008 debacle, the financial crisis, given
the vulnerable standing of people of color, led to an increase in the wealth
gap between whites and blacks (twenty times) and whites and Latinos
(eighteen times).147
A major reason for this disparity in wealth is inheritance and financial
gifts from kin. The average financial legacy for white families in 2001 was
ten times that of the average black family. Gittleman and Wolff examined
factors affecting wealth accumulation from 1984 to 1994 and found no evi-
dence of differences in saving behaviors after controlling for income. Had
blacks had comparable inheritance, income, and portfolios during this pe-
riod, they would have significantly narrowed the racial wealth gap. The
researchers conclude, however, that it will be “extraordinarily difficult for
blacks to make up significant ground relative to whites with respect to
wealth” because of their much lower rates of inheritance, lower incomes,
and the fact that much of their economic assets lie in home equity.148

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 The New Racism 59

Home equity is less among blacks than whites for several reasons. First,
the long history of segregation and redlining ensures that black housing is
concentrated in “less desirable” areas to the white mind. Further, housing
stock in black areas appreciates much more slowly than similar housing
in white locales, and in areas where the black population is growing,
housing prices often fall. Whites are also likely to rate neighborhoods
with high black populations as undesirable, promoting segregation.149

Managerial Views on Blacks

Recent research suggests that the views of white managers on blacks have
not changed dramatically since the 1960s. Earlier studies were optimistic
in predicting that managers would assume their social responsibilities
toward blacks after years of exclusion.150 Blacks have complained that
they are bypassed by white managers for promotion, that they are not
treated as equals, and that they endure a subtle hostility from their fellow
workers and supervisors.151 White employers and managers hiring for
unskilled positions generally hold views that are more openly racist. In
their interviews with Chicago and Cook county employers, Kirschenman
and Neckerman and Wilson found that blacks were viewed as having a
bad work ethic, as creating tensions in the workplace, as lazy and unreli-
able, as lacking leadership, and as having a bad attitude. For instance, a
suburban drugstore manager said the following about blacks:

It’s unfortunate, but in my business I think overall [black men] tend to be

viewed as dishonest. I think that’s too bad but that’s the image they have.
(Interviewer: So you think it’s an image problem?) Yeah, a dishonest, an im-
age problem of being dishonest, mean and lazy. They are known to be lazy.
They are [laughs]. I hate to tell you, but. It’s all an image though. Whether
they are or not, I don’t know, but it’s an image that is perceived. (Interviewer:
I see. How do you think that image was developed?) Go look in the jails
[laughs].152

Similarly, the chairman of a car transport company, when asked if there

were differences in the work ethic of whites, blacks, and Latinos, stated,

Definitively! I don’t think, I know: I’ve seen it over a period of 30 years. I

have it right in here. Basically, the Oriental is much more aggressive and
intelligent and studious than the Hispanic. The Hispanics, except Cubans of
course, they have the work ethnic [sic]. The Hispanics are mañana, mañana,
mañana tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. (Interviewer: You mentioned the
case of native-born blacks.) They’re the laziest of the bunch. (Interviewer:
That would relate to your earliest remarks about dependability. What is the
reason for that?) The parents are that way so, what the hell, they didn’t have
a role model to copy, that’s part of it.153

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 60 Chapter 2

In an investigation of the labor-market difficulties of urban minorities,

Moss and Tilly studied the attitudes of employers toward prospective
employees of entry-level, working-class jobs in the metropolitan areas
of Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles between 1992 and 1995.
Most employers expressed greater concern about soft skills, such as so-
cial skills, which are subjectively determined, than about the hard skills
of potential employees, and they found urban blacks, especially black
males and inner-city residents, wanting in this respect. Moss and Tilly
attributed the employers’ racial bias to racial stereotypes, negative and
racialized images of inner-city residents, and cultural differences, such as
dress, vocabulary, and syntax.154

CONCLUSION

To sum up, blacks through their struggle have been able to gain access to
the political system but that access has not translated itself into a signifi-
cant influence. More blacks are elected to office and appointed to various
positions than at any other time but that has a very limited impact on the
status of the black masses. Moreover, a series of indirect barriers to the
election of blacks, the rules of the game in Congress, and conditions in
the cities of America where blacks have seemingly had more political suc-
cess help to maintain them at bay and to preserve white political power
almost intact. The changes in the racial dynamics at all levels, of which I
have documented in this chapter only the social and economic, seem to
amount to a reorganization—still incomplete and somewhat partial—of
the racial structure of this country. This reorganization of the racial struc-
ture is incomplete because (1) not all the mechanisms and practices have
settled, that is, have become institutionalized, and (2) we still have many
legacies of the previous period affecting the life chances of blacks. On
the first point, discrimination in the realm of education, for example, has
not taken a definite institutional pattern in the contemporary period. In-
stead, there are various means (resegregation through white flight to the
suburbs and to private schools, within-school segregation, tracking, etc.)
to guarantee white advantages. On the second point, we still have old-
fashioned racists, extra-legal violence, and an undeclared apartheid in the
housing arena. Although many of these practices are manifestations of the
legacies of slavery and Jim Crow in this country, the evidence reviewed
here suggests that blacks and other minorities should fear less the angry
men with white hoods and their traditional discriminatory practices than
the men with suits and their “smiling discrimination.”155
I agree with Pettigrew and Martin when they claim that “the greater
subtlety of these new forms [of racial discrimination] pose new problems

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 The New Racism 61

of remedy. They act at both the structural-institutional level focused on by

sociologists, and the face-to-face situational level focused on by social psy-
chologists.”156 Some of these problems that require remedy are as follows:

1. Detection of racial discrimination is extremely difficult for the party

being discriminated against. Furthermore, too many progressive
whites tend to explain away many of the claims of contemporary
discrimination because

often the black is the only person in a position to draw the conclu-
sion that prejudice is operating in the work situation. Whites have
usually observed only a subset of the incidents, any one of which
can be explained away by a nonracial account. Consequently, many
whites remain unconvinced of the reality of subtle prejudice and
discrimination, and come to think of their black co-workers as “ter-
ribly touchy” and “overly sensitive” to the issue. For such reasons,
the modern forms of prejudice frequently remain invisible even to
its perpetrators.157

For example, when I, a black-looking Puerto Rican, am monitored

in stores or asked numerous times by clerks, “May I help you?” (a
way of letting me know they are checking me), I have limited legal
recourse. How can I charge discrimination when the behavior seems
to be “polite”? This is why some have referred to the new practices
as “smiling discrimination.”158
2. The standards that the Supreme Court has enacted recently on
discrimination cases (plaintiffs carrying the burden of proof in
discrimination cases and the denial of statistical evidence as valid
proof of discrimination) help to preserve intact the contemporary
forms for reproducing racial inequality in America. Unless the court
becomes cognizant of the new character of racial discrimination and
changes its current practice of requiring the “smoking gun” in cases,
the court itself will be participating in covering up the far-reaching
effects of racism in America.
3. Black leaders who continue to focus on the “old racism” will miss
the most important manners by which racial inequality is being
reproduced in America. It is vital that studies documenting the
pervasive and comprehensive character of the new racism are done
systematically.
4. Research that is still focused on the old racism will invariably find a
decline in the significance of race. Research on racial practices has to
become as sophisticated as the new racism. The studies carried out
by the Urban Institute and the Department of Housing and Urban
Development in which testers are sent out to various settings and

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 62 Chapter 2

organizations are an example of what can be done. Unfortunately,

that type of research does not enjoy the sympathy of our disciplines
and has even been deemed “unethical.” The web of discriminatory
practices in the contemporary period is still not complete.

Hence it is still possible to mount an offensive to change its course.

However, as I write this chapter, the prospects for such an offensive look
bleak. First, the election of Obama, as I argue later in this volume, has nar-
rowed the space for challenging race-based inequality. Nowadays whites
believe racism has all but been defeated and thus it is much harder to
challenge new and old-fashioned discrimination. Second, civil rights or-
ganizations such as the NAACP and the National Urban League continue
to fight the enemies of the past, like the Ku Klux Klan or their Tea Party
cousins, but not the contemporary structures and practices that are pri-
marily responsible for post–civil rights racial inequality. The more these
organizations fight “racists,” the more they fail to highlight the new ways
in which racial inequality is produced and reproduced, helping these
practices sediment. Third, we may have missed the boat to challenge the
system of “mass incarcerations”159 and will pay dearly for doing so. If we
do not work toward the development of a social movement to stop this
tactic of social control, our collective chances for racial redemption are
null. Unless this situation is reversed, the racial practices of the “new rac-
ism” will be institutionalized and minority folk will continue enduring a
second-class existence in seemingly color-blind America.

NOTES

1. In prior versions of this chapter (Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Amanda E.

Lewis, “The ‘New Racism’: Toward an Analysis of the U.S. Racial Structure,
1960–1990s,” in Race, Nation, and Citizenship, edited by Paul Wong, 100–150
[Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1999]; Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, White Supremacy and
Racism in the Post–Civil Rights Era [Boulder, Colo.: Rienner, 2001]; and Eduardo
Bonilla-Silva and David Dietrich, “The Sweet Enchantment of Color-Blind Racism
in Obamerica,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
634 [March 2011]: 190–206) I used the disciplinarily accepted term “discrimina-
tion,” but in this paper, where appropriate, I substitute with the notion of “racial
practices.” I do so because the notion of discrimination, married to the limiting
prejudice problematic (Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, “Rethinking Racism,” American So-
ciological Review 62, no. 3 [1997]: 465–80), does not allow us to capture normative,
seemingly nonracial, kinder, and gentler forms of reproducing racial domination.
Accordingly, by “racial practices” I refer to behaviors, styles, cultural affectations,
traditions, and organizational procedures that help maintain white rule. Because
many of these practices become routine (“That’s the way things are!”), they are

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 The New Racism 63

not necessarily carried out with animosity and intent; that is, hostility and explicit
expressions of racial cognitions and feelings about the “Other” need not be at the
core of these practices. In fact, in contemporary America they tend not to be Jim
Crow–like and are more in line with the hegemonic nature of post–civil rights ra-
cial domination (Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United
States [New York: Routledge, 1994]; Bonilla-Silva, White Supremacy and Racism in
the Post–Civil Rights Era).
2. This chapter revisits a chapter originally published in Paul Wong (ed.), Race,
Nation, and Citizenship (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999). The original chap-
ter had numerous references, many of which were cut due to space constraints. I
have also changed the parenthetical citations to endnotes. On the argument that
race has become less important for the life chances of blacks, see William J. Wil-
son, The Declining Significance of Race (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
3. Howard Schuman, Charlotte Steeh, and Lawrence Bobo, Racial Attitudes
in America: Trends and Interpretations (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard
University Press, 1985). See also, Paul Sniderman and Thomas Piazza, The Scar of
Race (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993).
4. See James P. Smith and Finnis R. Welch, Closing the Gap, Forty Years of Eco-
nomic Progress for Blacks (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 1986); See also
Eric Grodsky and Devah Pager, “The Structure of Disadvantage: Individual and
Occupational Determinants of the Black-White Wage Gap,” American Sociological
Review (2001): 542–67.
5. See Alphonso Pinkney, The Myth of Black Progress (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1984); Charles V. Willie, Caste and Class Controversy on Race and
Poverty: Round Two of the Willie/Wilson Debate (New York: General Hall, 1989).
6. See Lorenzo Greene and Carter G. Woodson, The Negro Wage Earner (New
York: Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1930); George Fred-
rickson, Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and
Destiny, 1817–1914 (New York: Evanston; San Francisco and London: Harper
Torchbooks, 1973).
7. Philip S. Foner, Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1619–1981 (New York:
International Publishers, 1981); Manning Marable, How Capitalism Underdeveloped
Black America (Boston: South End Press, 1983).
8. George Fredrickson, White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and
South African History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).
9. Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (New York, Toronto, and London:
McGraw-Hill, 1964 [1944]).
10. Sterling D. Spero and Abraham L. Harris, The Black Worker: The Negro and
the Labor Movement (New York: Atheneum, 1974).
11. C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, 2d ed. (New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1966).
12. Ernest Patterson, City Politics (New York: Dood, Mead, 1974).
13. William M. Tuttle Jr., “Labor Conflict and Racial Violence: The Black
Worker in Chicago, 1894–1919,” in Black Labor in America, edited by Milton Cantor,
86–110 (Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970).
14. Thomas Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America (Dallas: Southern
Methodist University Press, 1963).

13_151_Bonilla_Silva.indb 63 6/27/13 4:46 AM

 64 Chapter 2

15. In this chapter I limit the discussion to blacks and whites. However, see my
discussion in chapter 10, where I expand the scope to all groups.
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 The New Racism 65

edited by Fred L. Pincus and Howard J. Erlich (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press,
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 The New Racism 67

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 68 Chapter 2

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 The New Racism 69

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