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Analysis Of Bonilla Silva 's The Civil Rights Era

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In his paper, Bonilla-Silva argues that color-blind racism, which he says, “is the post-civil rights era”, has a peculiar style characterized by slipperiness, clear nonracialism, and ambivalence (Bonilla-Silva). I agree with Bonilla-Silva’s theories on “whites’ avoidance of direct racial language, “semantic moves” used by whites’ to safely express their racial view” (Bonilla-Silva) and lastly “the role of projection” (Bonilla-Silva), based on my personal experiences with friends and family and through observation of media on police brutality of mainly blacks. I appreciate Bonilla-Silva’s argument because he excavated the rhetorical maze of confusing, apparently ambivalent answers to straight questions, of answers speckled with disclaimer …show more content…

My friend Maria, who is Columbian, did the same thing when describing her circle of friends said, “All my friends aren’t only Hispanic, I have black ones too.” It is important to point out that young whites don’t use racial slurs as legitimate terms in public discussions doesn’t mean that they don’t use these terms or derogate blacks in other forms in private discussions. (Bonilla-Silva) “Racist terminology is current in the life of students as illustrated by the fact that over half of them acknowledged having friends or close relatives who are “racist”.” (Bonilla-Silva) For example, I recall an evening where my family and I went to a restaurant for dinner and the food wasn’t cooked to my mother’s liking and she stated, “I bet the cook is black”. And on another account of, privately being home, in the family room, as we all watched the news reporting a store robbery she said, “I guarantee it was one of those young black boy with dreads”. This leads to my second point, “semantic moves” used to safely express racial views. “Because post-civil rights norms disallow the open expression of direct racial views and positions, whites have developed a concealed way of voicing them.” (Bonilla-Silva) Two common verbal strategies used are, “I am not prejudiced, but…” and “Some of my best friends are…” My mother is African-American, from my

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