Racism with Antiracists: Color-Conscious Racism and the Unintentional Persistence of Inequality

Abstract

The latest turn in the sociological study of white racism argues that the paradigm of color-blind racism is the predominant form by which many whites unintentionally reproduce racist ideology due to ignorance, or dismissal, of structural racism. As a remedy, many scholars advocate that whites should turn to explicitly antiracist activism informed by structural analysis. Employing ethnographic data in a majority white antiracist organization as a touchstone for analysis, I problematize this arrangement by examining how racism is socially reproduced despite members good intentions, knowledge of structural racism, and explicitly color-conscious ideology. Using in-depth interviews, fieldnotes, and content analysis of organizational publications, I find several mechanisms at work which, unlike the dominant color-blind approach, explains the persistence of an antiracist racism.