White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era

Bonilla-Silva (sociology, Texas A&M U.) addresses the reasons that black Americans and other racial minorities lag behind whites in terms of income, wealth, occupational and health status, educational attainment, and other social indicators. Providing a new formulation of what “racism” and “prejudice” are, Bonilla-Silva argues that white supremacy and racial ideology are the most important sociological variables to explain the status of minorities. He finds that since the Jim Crow period, a new racial ideology has emerged in which white privilege continues through subtle institutional and apparently nonracial means. He shows how this new “color-blind racism” helps sustain relations of domination, leaving black Americans “at the bottom of the well.” Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)