A general theme of chapters four through six is undercover racism. As racism is a social construct, it has been able to change with the times. For instance, the blatant racism that could pass with the period of Jim Crow laws, Whites only vs Blacks only facilities, the reign of the KKK, and other blatant examples of racism, have now taken more covert forms to accommodate for post-Civil rights policies. . “I am not racist, but…” or “I am not black, so I do not know” are examples of what racism looks like now in language, and Bonilla-Silva dives into this concept, as well as others to explain how white people articulate their racist views without seeming “racist”
Bonilla-Silva interviews many Detroit Area Study (DAS) participants and college students and exposes the subtle expressions of contemporary racism. There are four tactics that Bonilla-Silva names; Indirect racial language to express racial views (this means while white people are not calling black people or other people of color slurs in public, they may be in spaces where this is normal in private), semantic terminology “I am not racist, but…” or “I am not black, so I do not know” This preface of ignorance allows whites to assert their beliefs without seeming racist because of these disclaimers), racial projection (which allows whites to argue that non-white people self segregate themselves, they are the ones clinging to the past and impeding their own progress, etc), and softening their stance regarding race talk. By maintaining or trying to portray a somewhat less strict stance on being for or against certain policies that allow for the equitable advancement of non-white people. This is similar to the first point of indirect racial language, but it regards concepts like interracial marriage or affirmative action.
This subtle language is not the only way white people can safely express or justify their views. They also use storytelling to justify their stances. Bonilla-Silva identifies storylines and testimonies as the modes of storytelling. He defines storylines as non-personal accounts used to essentially justify common belief, and testimonies are primary sources but can be divisive.
The purpose of these storylines is to in some shape or form argue against equitable programs for non-white people or shift blame (which can include the older generation of white people who had slaves or another racial group). Some popular storylines include “The Past Is the Past” and ““I didn’t own any slaves” These storylines downplay the generational impact of slavery in economic terms (which is why this stance is used to argue against equitable programs for black people) and rids white people of their duty to help fix what has been done in the past, allowing them to be “forward-facing”
Testimonies are more difficult because there are both positive and negative examples of testimonies provided by DAS respondents and college students. These firsthand experiences provide whites a more intimate platform to explain their biases and can boost themselves to look progressive and support the minority cause (which paints them in a positive light but still allows them to express how they truly feel). It is in their rhetoric that their “secondary” or “hidden” beliefs can be seen. Rhetoric like “those people”, failing to call black best friends by their name, and their answers to other questions regarding race relations provide insight into their racial views.
Lastly, Bonilla-Silva addresses segregation. People who observed black ghetto life concluded that black segregation explains the stereotypical portrayal of black people in the media. A “cool pose”, slang, and oppositional identity are all products of black people living amongst each other. While it is observable that this occurs when racial groups only live amongst themselves, the same concept can be applied to white people, which is what Bonilla-Silva explores. In this contemporary setting of racism, the majority of DAS respondents and college students expressed that they had no issues with racial intermingling for dinner or another activity along those lines. However, when asked about the practicality behind their beliefs, survey data shows that their actions cannot back up their beliefs, which is explained by white people’s own racial segregation. Their hyper segregation from black people (e.g. a predominantly white neighborhood) is viewed as normal, or the standard way of living, and not a racial phenomenon. This environment enables the positive self-views and negative other views simply due to normalized ignorance on a macroscale.