Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage [Paperback]

I found myself carrying this book around even after I'd read it once. Was it because people would ask me about it (mainly black people)? Was it because I wanted white people to think about the subject? Was it because it gave me immunity when I experienced covert racism and called people on it?

ALL OF THE ABOVE, and more! I kept re-reading parts and quoting from it; it was better to have the book handy to look up the quotes.

This was a great study and is a wonderful book.

Occasionally in the U.S. media, one reads articles about whites making racist comments about racial minorities in areas that are considered to be private, such as racist statements made by senior Texaco executives at a 1994 meeting or Senate majority leader Harry Reid stating that President Obama had a chance of winning because he was both "light-skinned" and didn't speak with a "negro dialect", or a Harvard Law student sending an e-mail asserting that blacks, on average, are less intelligent. However, this book "Two-Faced Racism" demonstrates that these are not random, isolated incidents but represent a wide spread phenomenon among many whites where they present a color-blind public front while in private settings they reveal the racist views they hold towards people of color. The authors of the book, as part of an extra credit assignment, has 626 white students in colleges and universities throughout the United States write the racial incidents they view over the course of a school semester. To avoid an over reporting of racial incidents and to get a full account of the racism they observe, the students are not graded on the number of incidents they report but rather on the content and quality of their writing. Moreover, the authors decide to focus on white college students since they are considered to be progressive on racial matters and will become the future leaders and professionals of American society. At the end of the semester, the students report 7500 racist incidents against people of color with the overwhelming targets being black Americans. While this is not a random sample, the authors estimate that millions of these types of racist incidents occur during the course of a year.

The authors note that in public (or as they call "front stage") settings, whites students display a range of behavior toward racial minorities such as acting overly nice, avoiding contact with racial minorities (e.g. crossing a street or not going to a particular bar or club), trying to mimic "black mannerisms and speech", avoiding the use of racial labels and using code words to talk negatively about minorities in areas where minorities may be present and occasionally violence. In private setting (or as they call "back stage") settings, white students often use humor to reinforce racial stereotypes about minorities, particularly black Americans while occasionally using blatant racist speech. This book explores front stage and back stage settings, what happens when an intruder or someone who is "not really white" is a party to the back stage, what happens when a white stranger enters a back stage discussion on race and what happens when there are dissenters to the racist speech. The author notes that the purpose of these back stage performances are to create white group solidarity and to reinforce the ideology of white and male supremacy.

While many contemporary books about racism focus on the systemic impact, many books do not explore how contemporary racism is perpetuated on an individual level under the current era of color-blind racism. This book explores how whites act on an individual level to preserve white supremacy. I thought this was an excellent read in order to discover how racism is enacted and perpetuated by individual whites. This book may be shocking to some reader who believe that the United States is finally post-race (in fact, the authors report that many of the college students were surprised at number of racist comments and incidents they observe). But it is to be aware of this problem if we are going to address and correct it. I highly recommend this book.

Bonilla-Silva's book is an essential read for anyone interested in contemporary, post-Civil Rights forms of racism and white privilege. This book has been considered controversial by some, but it also provides some valuable tools of sociological analysis, such as the 4 central frames of color-blind racism. While I do not agree with all of the author's conclusions, his work certainly sparks conversation and brings needed attention to the topic of modern racial inequality.

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