Colorblind Racism by Meghan Burke

Discussion Questions

Introduction

 How Familiar do these common themes of colorblind racism sound, from the ways that you’ve
heard race discussed in everyday life?
 Who benefits from a widespread belief in colorblindness?
 What elements of racial inequality are hardest to explain without these “common-sense”
notions about race and racism?
 Which of the previous names given to colorblind racism do you think best captures its defining
features?
 What elements of colorblind racism uncovered by this body of scholarship seem most important
to emphasize?
 Which elements of contemporary racism, if any, seem to be missing in this shift toward analyses
of colorblind racism?
 What are some specific familiar phrases that reflect these four frames? (abstract liberalism,
naturalization, cultural racism, minimization of racism)
 How can your growing capacity as a sociological thinker counter some of those frames when you
encounter them in everyday life? (abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism,
minimization of racism)
 What proportion of the race talk that you observe is overt? Where does it occur, and by whom?
 Given the wide range of expressions of racism, how do you think it is best measured and
studied?

Colorblindness in Historical Context

 To what extent has the history you’ve learned been colorblind?

 What was your prior perception of the Civil Rights Movement – both its areas of focus, and how
much it was able to achieve?
 To what extent do current political parties/movements use colorblind, coded, or white
supremacist language? How do you think that impacts upon their voting base?
 What are some ways that you have seen ideological systems impact upon ostensibly neutral
scientific or theoretical frameworks?
 How does a focus on ideologies and social systems rather than individual prejudice change the
way you might think and talk about racism?

Colorblindness in Divergent Contexts

 In what ways do the institutions and communities that surround you reflect colorblind
ideologies and discourses around race?
 How might positive or “tolerant” discourse still be problematic in our institutions and
communities?
 What are some ways that these institutions could change their policies to better support racial
equality?
  How could policy be universally applicable and still attentive to proven structural inequalities?
What might this look like in education, housing, and other policies and programs?
 Where and in what ways do you see colorblind ideologies employed in the informal social
spaces that surround you?
 What are some of the harms of these often well-intentioned expressions?

Contested Colorblindness

 How does one’s racial identity and life circumstances impact upon the way colorblind discourse
can be heard and understood?
 What insights about our social and racial systems emerge from this more complex reading of
colorblind expressions among these diverse groups?
 What factors seem to spur social action around colorblind ideals versus colorblind ideologies?
 How have you seen colorblind ideologies reflected in ways that are more complicated than a
simple uncritical defense of racism?
 What do ongoing overt expressions of racism reveal about current racial dynamics?
 How do these expressions relate to movements for social and racial justice?

New Directions

 How does parsing colorblind ideology from colorblind identity help to provide insight about the
ways that people make sense of the social structures around them?
 To what extent does it seem that there may be a growing awareness of racism among the
general public? What might this tell us about contemporary racism and how it is best studies
and addressed?
 Why is a sharp focus on whiteness and the practices that uphold it necessary when examining
challenges to and changes surrounding contemporary racism?
 What are some of the ways that whites can understand the realities of racism and act to support
racial justice efforts?

Transcribed by Lauren Pruter