Color-Blind Racism in Grutter and Gratz

Abstract

In Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva examines how whites use color-blindness as a tool to perpetuate racial inequality without themselves sounding racist. He asserts that white America's justifications for the continued second-class status of African Americans stem from a new, post-Civil Rights racial ideology that he calls color-blind racism. Bonilla-Silva argues that color-blind racism, which is founded upon the belief that race no longer matters, is currently the dominant racial ideology in the United States. This Book Review ratifies Bonilla-Silva's argument through an examination of the recent Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action in higher education. which demonstrably undervalue the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Through the use of a color-blind ideology, the Justices mask the seriousness of racial inequality in the United States and may be hastening an end to racial progress before its time.