Post Reading Week 5

-   -    Eduardo Bonilla-Silva refers to CBR as ‘racism-lite’ because CBR isn’t a blunt form of racism. It’s more people walking around the subject of racism or being outright racist. People have evolved into more tolerable people but they still believe in some stereotypes and when they exhibit those beliefs or make certain statements they’re alluding to racism. It’s a way for people to hide behind their racist beliefs and disguise what they actually mean when they say certain things.

-    -   Well, technically the video can’t be racist because the woman behind the video is African American, and racism is a combination of power and prejudice and African Americans don’t have structural power behind them. However this video is pretty prejudice. It groups a lot of things some but not all white girls say to their African American girl friends. In this film she’s trying to prove, and does a pretty good job, at exemplifying the fact that things white girls say can be racist but aren’t so blunt or are sugar coated that they either don’t notice or disregard the fact what their saying is based off of stereotypes.

-     -  White people gain to stand by using CBR because for so long they were able to be frank about their racist opinions and after the civil rights they had to suppress some of their beliefs. CBR allows them to still express their racism without necessarily having to deal with the consequences of saying something so blatantly racist.  They get to manipulate there words so that they are still racist but some people don’t catch the racism in what their saying.

-    -   Some common rebuttal to CBR might be that people can’t help the fact that certain stereotypes of races are true. That it’s just the way the world is and they can’t change it, whether they’re talking about one person or a whole group changing it. However, it’s not true that it’s just the way the world is. There are certain laws and people that reinforce stereotypes and don’t look any further than what they see. People are often grouped in to a large majority or statistic when there’s the obvious fact that not all people should be. There are so many important figures in America and so many people who don’t follow stereotypes and it’s those people that don’t get considered and are often grouped in with these stereotypes because it fits their race. Certain stereotypes might be true for some but not all and for those who it may be true for think of how it is they got there in the first place. They were never given the chance for true equality and fairness.

-      - Numbers 4, 5, and 18-21 were the most expressive of racism. They sounded condescending and just were obviously supported by beliefs that stemmed from racism or stereotypes. The one question that really y struck me as ambiguous was number 17, the one about Gingrich referring to Obama as “the food stamp president.” I need more context for what Gingrich was saying and trying to prove when he said that because referring to Obama as “the food stamp president” could be talking about his stance on welfare or his race, or something else.

-      - What’s left out when people talk about diversity they don’t talk about all the inequalities that are still present between races and white privilege that feeds these inequalities. It’s a problem because if people continue to not recognize or ignore the fact that there is still unfairness among races then society can never move forward and make a change.

-     -  We study colorblind racism in Ethnic Studies so that we are all aware of it, so that we can no longer continue thinking that there is complete equality. It’s important for people to realize that if they don’t understand how CBR applies to them than they can never fully move past it. Without knowing and understanding CBR it would be incredibly difficult to fully pursue social justice because we wouldn’t understand a huge social injustice that’s present.

-   -    CBR is super important for understanding the U.S.. It allows people to see how some races are still restricted by laws through CBR and how officials use CBR to get certain results. It’s also very pertinent currently with the presidential election going on, it allows people to have a deeper insight to what the candidates represent.

-     -  I think I have always been a little aware of CBR but had never been able to define it and now that I have, I can feel a little reassured that it’s pretty common and that I can move toward not being so color-blind racist.

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