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Color-Blind Racial Ideology Theory, Training, and Measurement Implications in Psychology
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Check My Assignment!Helen A. Neville University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign Germine H. Awad University of Texas at Austin
James E. Brooks and Michelle P. Flores University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign Jamie Bluemel Chicago School of Professional Psychology
Synthesizing the interdisciplinary literature, we character- ize color-blind racial ideology (CBRI) as consisting of two interrelated domains: color-evasion (i.e., denial of racial differences by emphasizing sameness) and power-evasion (i.e., denial of racism by emphasizing equal opportunities). Mounting empirical data suggest that the color-evasion dimension is ineffective and in fact promotes interracial tension and potential inequality. CBRI may be conceived as an ultramodern or contemporary form of racism and a legitimizing ideology used to justify the racial status quo. Four types of CBRI are described: denial of (a) race, (b) blatant racial issues, (c) institutional racism, and (d) White privilege. We discuss empirical findings suggesting a rela- tionship between CBRI and increased racial prejudice, racial anger, and racial fear. Implications for education, training, and research are provided.
Keywords: color-blind racial ideology, racism, racial be- liefs, prejudice, discrimination
The question of whether the United States has movedbeyond race and racism is one that scholars havegrappled with for decades. For some, President Barack Obama’s ascension into the White House in 2008 marked the beginning of a new “postracial” era in which issues of race and racial discrimination are memories of a not-too-distant past. After all, such people argue, if a Black American man could be elected twice to the highest office, then the country has transcended its racial past. Scholars have provided sharp analyses countering the legitimacy of a postracial or color-blind America after Obama’s first election (e.g., Alexander, 2010; Cha-Jua, 2009; Wise, 2010). Public opinion polls provide further empirical sup- port for these analyses (e.g., Agiesta & Ross, 2012; Hutch- ings, 2009). Some findings suggest that White adults’ views on racial policies changed very little between 1998 and the election of President Obama (Hutchings, 2009), while others indicate an actual increase in explicit and implicit anti-Black racial prejudice since his historic elec- tion (Agiesta & Ross, 2012). Thus, even though a Black American man twice has been elected president, we have actually witnessed an increase in anti-Black prejudice, sug- gesting that race still matters in U.S. society.
Psychology has a rich history of research designed to understand and describe the changing expressions of racial beliefs, including the highly contested notion of racial color
blindness. In the 1990s, the American Psychological As- sociation (APA; 1997) published a pamphlet answering the question: Can—or Should—America Be Color-Blind? Us- ing research from social psychology, APA uncovered fal- lacies in individual and collective color-blind approaches to racism and thus concluded in the pamphlet, “Despite soci- ety’s best attempts to ignore race, the research indicates that race does matter” (p. 7). More recently, Melba Vasquez convened the Task Force on Preventing Discrim- ination and Promoting Diversity during her presidency of APA; the Task Force produced a detailed report on preju- dice, stereotypes, and discrimination (APA, Presidential Task Force on Preventing Discrimination and Promoting Diversity, 2012). In the report, interpersonal and institu- tional (racial) discrimination were characterized as human rights violations, and psychologists were encouraged to educate themselves and others about the evolving manifes- tations of discrimination. Color-blind racial ideology (CBRI) is one such evolving manifestation of racial dis- crimination (APA, Presidential Task Force on Preventing Discrimination and Promoting Diversity, 2012). Surpris- ingly, to date, there is no synthesis and integration of the debates within the racial color-blindness literature and their implications in psychology.
In this article, we propose a CBRI framework to help synthesize the divergent perspectives in the literature. In defining CBRI, we argue that racial color-blindness is unattainable, reinforces racial prejudices and/or inequality, and is actually an expression of ultramodern notions of racism among White Americans and of internalized racism or the adoption of negative racial stereotypes among people of color. By ultramodern we mean the new articulation of racism at this historic moment that demands the develop- ment of theory and corresponding scales (McConahay, 1986). Given our view of CBRI as an ultramodern form of racism—particularly among White Americans—we differ-
Helen A. Neville, Departments of Educational Psychology and African American Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Germine (Gigi) H. Awad, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin; James E. Brooks and Michelle P. Flores, Counseling Psychology Program, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Jamie Bluemel, Chicago School of Professional Psychology.
