The Declining Significance of Race or the Persistent Racialization of Blacks? A Conceptual,Empirical,and Methodological Review of Today’s Race Debate in America

Abstract

The sociological literature of the past several decades has emphasized two apparently contradictory perspectives—the “declining significance of race” and persistent racialization of Blacks. This article surveys the empirical evidence in support of both these perspectives and attempts to explain this seeming contradiction. Based on a thorough review of recent literature on this polarized debate, this article argues that proponents of the decline of race argument misconceptualize race and apply methodologies that fail to measure the hidden ways in which structural racism still operates against African Americans today. The article concludes that White racial framing of colorblindness operating on a flawed conceptualization of race and inadequate methodology masks a reality where racism persists robustly, but more subtly than during the pre-civil rights era.

Keywords

race class African Americans racialization The U.S. race debate

The literature on race in the United States has seen the rise of two contradictory perspectives as scholars continue to disagree over the legacy of the civil rights movement (Brown et al., 2003). On one hand, authors such as William Julius Wilson (1980), Dinesh D’Souza (1995), and Thernstrom and Thernstrom (1997) argue that racial inequalities can no longer be attributed to Whites’ racism in today’s post-Jim Crow era. Instead, the racial disparity between Blacks and Whites in income, education, employment, residence, and so on is because of Blacks’ inability to take advantage of resources for upward mobility. On the other hand, a host of race scholars have argued that persistent structural inequalities informed by race are the determinants of the racial gap. This article outlines the polarized race debate to explain this seeming paradox.

Empirical Evidence: The Declining Significance of Race

The point of departure for this perspective is how can a Black middle class be emerging if race still matters today. William Julius Wilson (1980) most famously exemplifies this view that racism is no longer as significant in affecting Blacks’ conditions of life as it was before the civil rights movement (Allen & Chung, 2000; Bonilla-Silva & Baiocchi, 2001).¹ Primarily focusing on the economic sector (class and the labor market), Wilson argues that economic dislocation is more central to the lives of poor Blacks than the problem of race. He posits that race relations in the slavery, segregation, and industrial expansion eras were shaped by historically specific systems of production and explicitly color-coded laws. In contrast, today’s laws promote racial equality. The shift toward an industrial economy has also produced more resources for Blacks who are increasingly obtaining education and professional jobs because of affirmative action policies since the civil rights era, thus leading to the formation of the Black middle class. Wilson predicts that a reverse of Blacks’ economic progress is unlikely, given that racial discrimination is illegal today. Empirical research supporting W. J. Wilson’s (1980) thesis found that wage disadvantages and labor market discrimination of Black men have substantially decreased since the civil rights movement (Hout, 1984; Sakamoto, Wu, & Tzeng, 2000).

However, W. J. Wilson (1980) does not explain the continuing presence of the Black underclass.² Thernstrom and Thernstrom (1997) respond to this critique by arguing that Blacks’ success, failure, and the formation of a middle class are determined by individual attainments of education. Contrary to Wilson’s argument that government programs have provided Blacks with education and employment opportunities, Thernstrom and Thernstrom argue that Blacks have made progress in income and education prior to the affirmative action policies. The Black–White racial gap is mostly because of Blacks not receiving education—Had Blacks taken the initiative to acquire education and skills valued by employers, the present racial inequality would not have existed. However, their argument does not explain the inequality existing between Blacks and Whites having similar levels of education, profession, and class (Berry & Bonilla-Silva, 2008; Lacy, 2007; Pattillo-McCoy, 1999; Shapiro, 2004; Thomas, 1993). Nonetheless, proponents use Blacks’ individual responsibility to explain structural inequalities. For example, Thernstrom and Thernstrom argue that Blacks’ ethnic group loyalty³ causes residential segregation along racial lines. The formation of even the notably affluent and exclusive Black residential neighborhoods, however, can be traced back to Whites’ beliefs that Blacks are culturally and biologically inferior (Haynes, 2001; Pattillo, 2003a, 2005).

Empirical Evidence: The Persistent Significance of Race

Despite the formal illegalization of racial discrimination, various empirical studies show how White privilege and structural racism still operate in housing (Lacy, 2007; Pattillo-McCoy, 1999), income and wealth (D. Brown, 2014; Oliver & Shapiro, 2013; Shapiro, 2004; Thomas, 1993), the workforce (Berry & Bonilla-Silva, 2008; Feagin, 1991; G. Wilson, 1997; G. Wilson & Sakura-Lemessy, 2000), health (Duster, 2003; Read & Emerson, 2005; Skloot, 2010), law (Alexander, 2013; Pettit, 2012), education (Andrews & Tuitt, 2013; Bell, 2004; Lewis, 2005; Steele, 2010; Tatum, 2007; Wilder, 2013), and so on. An overview of some such studies is as follows.

Shapiro (2004) shows that, contrary to W. J. Wilson’s (1980) claims, the lack of progress in home ownership is reversing whatever progress Blacks have been able to make in education and employment. Home ownership is a key pathway toward building wealth.⁴ Although they have a higher income today than before the civil rights era, Blacks largely still do not have wealth—an outcome of Blacks being deprived of even their basic rights for centuries. Meanwhile, Whites accumulated wealth as they occupied privileged socioeconomic positions. While Blacks have to sacrifice expenses in important areas to pay down payment for a home from their income, Whites can pay from their accumulated wealth. These wealth differences have intergenerational effects because unlike White parents, Black parents do not have a nest egg to pass on to their children.

Again, refuting claims of group loyalty by Thernstrom and Thernstrom (1997), studies show that the Black and White middle-class neighborhoods remain segregated and unequal even when both groups have similar income levels because of structural racism against Blacks (Pattillo, 2003b, 2005; Pattillo-McCoy, 1999). Ethnographic evidence shows that unlike White middle-class neighborhoods, Black middle-class neighborhoods (a) do not comprise of mostly high-paid professionals, (b) have higher crime rates, (c) have houses valued lower despite having similar features, and (d) are located within Black communities encompassing working-class Black neighborhoods as well (Pattillo, 2003a; Pattillo-McCoy, 1999).

These residential patterns shape middle-class Black families’ intergenerational mobility. Many Black youths are unable to achieve upward mobility, despite both parents being educated professionals. Because of their proximity to working-class communities, even Black youths in middle-class neighborhoods are heavily exposed to the consumer culture, which makes gangster life look cool (Pattillo-McCoy, 1999). Marketers racially profile and target the young Black population. Disenchanted by racial barriers constraining their upward mobility, many young Blacks rebel by experimenting with the flashy gangster lifestyle with serious consequences. Middle-class Blacks are still vulnerable as their neighborhoods are plagued with racial segregation, inadequate public schooling, underemployment, poverty, and high crime-rates (Pattillo, 2003a; Pattillo-McCoy, 1999).

The “black middle class” is, both conceptually and empirically, a heterogeneous category consisting of three forms of Black middle class—lower middle, middle middle, and upper middle, each having different experiences, identity formation processes, and interactions with Whites and other Blacks (Lacy, 2007). Nonetheless, even Blacks who are highly paid professionals, work in places where Whites are racially overrepresented, and live in exclusive middle-class neighborhoods are negatively stereotyped and viewed as an inferior group by their White middle-class counterparts.⁵ To avoid being racially stereotyped and stigmatized, they have to stringently and strategically maintain a “public face”⁶ to prove their middle-class status in their everyday lives (Feagin & Sikes, 1994; Lacy, 2007).

These micro-level social interactions shape Blacks’ structural conditions. How these Black individuals are perceived by realtors, for example, determine the kind of real estate they can purchase (Lacy, 2007; Pattillo, 2003a). Realtors working on racist assumptions systematically push their Black middle-class clients to “black” neighborhoods with less property values. Thus, even Blacks having both intention and ability to purchase property in White neighborhoods are unable to do so as they become victims of racist stereotyping by White real estate agents, insurance agents, and lenders (Feagin, 1999).

Racist stereotyping can also constrain structural opportunities in other crucial sectors, such as in the field of education (Steele, 2010). Amanda Lewis (2005), for example, shows how the perpetuation of color-blind racism through everyday interactions in elementary schools provides resources and opportunities to students differentially, in turn shaping the children’s future possibilities. Teachers,⁷ unaware of acting in racist ways, unintentionally perpetuate existing inequalities by awarding the already privileged (wealthy White students) and penalizing the already oppressed (poor Black students) because of schools’ meritocratic structure. Racialized moments in classrooms accumulate to produce racist patterns of unequal treatment. Micro-level encounters with racism and internalization of negative stereotypes by students of color have far-reaching effects on their identities, classroom experiences, attendance, and dropout rates at different levels of education (Feagin, Vera, & Imani, 1996; Lewis, 2005; Steele, 2010).

The systematic racialization of Blacks is perhaps most clearly reflected in the criminal justice system (Alexander, 2013; Foreman, 2011; López, 2010; Mauer, 2006; Pettit, 2012; Taylor, 2013). Even though people of all colors use and sell drugs in similar rates, Black men are incarcerated at rates 20 to 50 times greater than those of White men (Alexander, 2013). In fact, a “black man born in the 1960s, after the victories of the civil rights movement, is more than twice as likely to go to prison in his lifetime as was a man born during the Jim Crow era” (Foreman, 2011, p. 793). In her investigation of this huge racial disparity, Michelle Alexander (2013) argues that the government uses punishments as a tool for social control. Thus, the extent and severity of the punishment are often unrelated to the actual crimes. Because of Blacks’ collective negative image, the failure of one individual implies the failure of the entire racial/ethnic group. As such, a punishment for one Black individual carries symbolic meanings pertaining to the entire group’s position in society. By disproportionately incarcerating Blacks in prisons, the government is systematically locking away a huge proportion of Blacks from the mainstream society and economy, consequently gridlocking them into a permanent second-class citizen status. Thus, Alexander argues that mass incarceration is metaphorically the “New Jim Crow” in today’s apparently “post-racial” but actually racially caste-like society.⁸

Explaining the Paradox

How can the contradiction between these two perspectives on race be explained? This essay identifies two main flaws in the declining significance of race argument. First, in terms of conceptualization, authors of the declining significance of race paradigm operationalize race as rigid and unchanging over time—explicitly color-coded in the formal legal structure and economic system. Based on this conceptualization, these authors argue that because racial discrimination has been formally made illegal in the post-civil-rights era, race no longer exists. However, race today operates in different and more covert ways than in the Jim Crow era (Bonilla-Silva, 2009; Omi & Winant, 1994; Prashad, 2000). The flawed conceptualization of race as rigid and unchanging contributes to the pervasive “color-blind” ideology (Bonilla-Silva, 2009; Omi & Winant, 1994). Furthermore, subscription to the color-blind ideology prevents people from locating White privilege and how it is widening the gap between Blacks and Whites.

Second, methodologically, scholars advocating the decline of race conduct research in ways that limit the significance of race and validate color-blind racism (Bonilla-Silva & Baiocchi, 2001; Zuberi, 2001; Zuberi & Bonilla-Silva, 2008). W. J. Wilson (1980), for example, undermines the significance of race because he compares Blacks’ economic progress with the condition of Blacks during slavery. However, to understand the actual racial dynamics in today’s society, comparison should be made between the conditions of Blacks and those of Whites within the same time frame (Bonilla-Silva, 2009). Furthermore, the economic sphere is not separate from the subjective experiences and perceptions of race but is affected by them (Lacy, 2007). While William Julius Wilson separates the political and economic spheres, scholars on the other side have shown that racial competition in the political sphere interjects into and shapes the economic sphere, thus reinforcing White privilege over racially underrepresented groups across sectors (Bobo & Smith, 1998; Farley & Allen, 1987; Jaynes & Williams, 1989; Jung, Costa Vargas, & Bonilla-Silva, 2011; Omi & Winant, 1994). As such, scholars advocating the persistent significance of race perspective call for an intersectional⁹ approach to study racial inequality at the crossroad of multiple hierarchies (Allen & Chung, 2000; Collins, 1991; Crenshaw, 1989, 1991). These points are explicated as follows.

Ideology: Color-Blind Racism and the Perpetuation of White Privilege

The proponents of the declining significance of race paradigm conceptualize race to be in explicit color-coded forms as in the days of Jim Crow. Opposed to such rigid theorization of race, Omi and Winant (1994) provide a framework that presents race as a social construct that can change forms over time. Their framework, the racial formation theory,¹⁰ examines the evolving ways in which race operates. Through this framework, they operationalized different forms of racism, which replaced the explicit color-coded forms that prevailed in the Jim Crow era—neo-conservatism, colorblindness, reverse racism, and authoritarian populism. Feagin (2006), however, proposes an alternative framework to racial formation theory—systemic racism,¹¹ which better captures the foundational, deep, layered, complex, and institutionalized operation of race in the United States (Feagin & Elias, 2013). Systemic racism (Feagin, 2006) is an inescapable “hierarchical system of US racial oppression devised and maintained by Whites and directed at people of color” (Feagin & Elias, 2013, p. 936). The White racial frame—a socially constructed, pervasive, and powerful worldview devised by Whites—rationalized and advanced systemic racism, shaping and maintaining the U.S. racial hierarchy and privileging Whites, especially White elites, for centuries (Feagin, 2010).

Today, the U.S. society operates within a color-blind racial project,¹² a product of the White racial frame. In it, racial distinctions are not made in hiring processes, admissions in educational institutions, and distribution of resources. Color-blind proponents argue for “racial equality” by saying that affirmative action is “reverse racism” because it favors Blacks over Whites. Colorblindness thus reinforces White privilege and the oppression of non-Whites in the United States. Studies suggest that color-blind racism is a pervasive ideology functioning at both interactional and structural levels, regardless of whether people are aware of acting in racist ways (Berry & Bonilla-Silva, 2008; Bonilla-Silva, 2009, 2002, 2012; Bonilla-Silva & Dietrich, 2011; Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Bonilla-Silva, Lewis, & Embrick, 2004).¹³

The declining significance of race argument is an expression of color-blind racism, which obstructs people from locating the covert ways in which race and racism persist and then from connecting racial inequalities to sociohistorical processes. Color-blind racism severs the historical specificity of America’s racial dynamics by ignoring the cumulative advantages of Whites at the expense of Blacks’ slavery in the past and their continued marginalization today. Blacks and Whites still cannot compete in a level playing field despite anti-discrimination laws because of America’s legacy of racial violence against non-Whites (Feagin, 2006, 2010). Anti-Black politics is so embedded in the U.S. society that Blacks are implicit targets of racism even when they are not present in the frame. The “model minority” stereotype for South Asians, for example, has been constructed in relation to Blacks in the United States (Prashad, 2000). Based on values of hard work and individual responsibility as opposed to structural determinants, the “model minority” stereotype infers that Blacks are unsuccessful because of their own character.¹⁴ The election of Barack Obama does not exemplify that America has emerged as a “post-racial” society. Instead, Obama’s election reflects color-blind racism as Whites view him to have “transcended his blackness” and because Obama himself has adopted a “post-racial” persona and politics (Bonilla-Silva & Dietrich, 2011, p. 98; Bonilla-Silva & Ray, 2009). The task of explicating the hidden forms of racism in everyday life falls on the shoulders of social scientists. However, the color-blind ideology also pervades how mainstream sociologists conduct research and report their findings (Bonilla-Silva & Baiocchi, 2001; Zuberi, 2001; Zuberi & Bonilla-Silva, 2008).

Methodology: Color-Blind Racism in Social Science Research

Based on an inadequate theorization of race that fails to capture racism as a structural phenomenon, mainstream sociologists have reinforced the White racial frame or Whites’ “racial common sense” (Bonilla-Silva & Baiocchi, 2001, p. 118). Many such sociologists use mathematical models and statistical data from survey research on racial attitudes reflecting racial progress as evidence of the declining significance of race today (Zuberi, 2001). However, the survey outcomes only reflect “a new racial ideology” or colorblindness, which protect the White racial hierarchy (Bonilla-Silva & Baiocchi, 2001; Zuberi & Bonilla-Silva, 2008). To effectively capture the persisting effects of racism against non-Whites today, race scholars have called for in-depth qualitative and mixed methodologies that go beyond the “façade of objectivity” to examine Whites’ racial ideology (re)constructed in everyday interactions (Bonilla-Silva, 2001; Bonilla-Silva & Baiocchi, 2001, p. 119).

Sociologists reinforcing color-blind ideology (W. J. Wilson, 1980)¹⁵ aim to separate the effects of race and class to measure which variable is more significant. However, class is not independent of race; instead, both are intersectional (Allen & Chung, 2000; Bonilla-Silva & Baiocchi, 2001; Omi & Winant, 1994). Because racial stratification permeates every layer in the social system, scholars should not be measuring whether it is class or race that determines Blacks’ and Whites’ life chances. Instead, social science researchers should locate racial inequality at the intersection of multiple inequalities to study how the combined and simultaneous effects of race and class stratifications shape the lives of social actors (Allen & Chung, 2000; Bonilla-Silva & Baiocchi, 2001).

Furthermore, sociologists (W. J. Wilson, 1980) aiming to highlight the advances made by Blacks in today’s “post-racial” America compare the conditions of Blacks now with Blacks in the antebellum and pre-civil rights era. However, such comparison does not measure the continuing racial inequality between Blacks and Whites today. To effectively measure whether race still determines Blacks’ conditions of life, comparisons should be made between the current structural positions of Blacks and those of Whites today (Bonilla-Silva, 2009).

Mainstream sociologists also tend to minimize the effects of racism when presenting their findings. For example, they report findings in terms of “race effects” rather than racism effects, that is, they fail to explain or refuse to acknowledge that the race effect in their findings is the outcome of racism and racial stratification (Bonilla-Silva & Baiocchi, 2001). Such reporting of results supports racist readings and use of social science research, in that the racial effects can be then attributed to Blacks’ cultural and individual deficiencies (Dumm, 1993). Scholars also largely tend to use “abstracting language of ‘society,’ ‘state,’ or ‘racism’ that obscures Whites’ directive and ongoing role” in preserving the U.S. racial hierarchy in their research (Feagin & Elias, 2013, p. 938).

Concluding Thoughts

There is no “paradox” or “contradiction” in the race debate—the significance of race is not declining. The White racial framing of colorblindness operating on a flawed conceptualization of race masks a reality where racism persists robustly, but more subtly than during the pre-civil rights era. While Blacks have made some progress compared with their position in the Jim Crow era, a gaping divide persists between Blacks and Whites today across all social spheres. This racial divide is maintained both at the structural and interactional levels preventing Blacks from accessing equal opportunities. While the race debate is becoming increasingly polarized, hidden backlashes against the civil rights achievements are ongoing in law, housing, education, and so on. Authors and policy makers need to urgently go beyond the individualization narrative to examine the structural patterns of racism affecting Blacks as well as other groups of color. An intersectional perspective that positions race at the crossroads of multiple inequalities will better equip social scientists and policy makers to address the Black–White racial gap.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Tahseen Shams is a doctoral student in sociology and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests include issues concerning race/ethnicity, international migration, and identity. Her current research explores how global geopolitical contexts shape immigrants’ identity formation.

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