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The Sociologist May 2017 On the Cover: Processing line for Braceros at Immigration, El Paso, Texas, 1955. Source: United CONTENTS States Customs and Immigration Services History Office and Library. 3 Contributors Racism in TrumpAmerica Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Emily McDonald 9 Briana Pocratsky Sociology & Activism Maria Valdovinos Putting the Social in Science: Louise M. Puck Sociologists March Lucy Y. Twimasi Shannon N. Davis 11 Representations of South Asian The Sociologist is published three times a year Characters in U.S. Media by the District of Columbia Sociological Society (DCSS) in partnership with the George Mason University Department of Sociology and Anthropology. 13 There is No Prison in Washington: Challenges of Reentry in the District Write for The Sociologist. Send us your insights. 15 Contact the managing editor [email protected] Immigrant Laborers Bring May for submission guidelines and Flowers information on advertising. 16 http://thesociologistdc.com/ What’s next? http://www.dcsociologicalsociety.org/ 2 individual-level analysis of people’s attitudes, Racism in TrumpAmerica motivations, and behaviors. This perspective, so evident in the last election cycle, does not allow us to Eduardo Bonilla-Silva justify the agenda and politics the moment requires. The more we focus on individual prejudice, the more 109th President of the we will continue advocating for education, diversity American Sociological Association training, and racial dialogues or “beer summits” as the solutions to racism. We must find ways of This is an abridged version of a presidential talk to advancing a structural interpretation of racism. We the District of Columbia Sociological Society, must explain that racism is about racial domination or January 27, 2017. racial rule. And because racism is anchored on systemic advantages for whites, whites are vested in This article is about race in TrumpAmerica and is maintaining the (racial) world as it is (Bonilla-Silva oriented around two pressing questions: (1) is 1997). Trump’s victory evidence of an increase in “racism” A Taste of Feeling Race in the nation? and (2) is the problem of racism Although I believe it is crucial that we concentrated among poor, uneducated, working class anchor our analysis of race matters in a structural- white folks? To answer these questions, I will do four materialist theory, we must expand our notion of the things. First, emphasize the need for theoretical “material.” Why? Because humans do not survive on clarity on what racism is all about and give you a bread alone! Once any social category is created, it is taste of what I will articulate in my ASA speech in also charged emotionally. Simply put: one cannot 2018. Second, argue that systemic racism did not die create social divisions without imbuing and bonding in the late 1960s with the collapse of Jim Crow, but the actors emotionally. was replaced by a more formidable regime—the “new racism.” Third, contend that although there are several racial ideologies at play, “color-blind racism” rules the ideological landscape of the nation. I will …although some of the practices argue that this ideology is the connecting racial tissue of how most whites think, talk, frame, and even feel may not be covert and subtle, about race matters. Lastly, conclude by addressing they are so by virtue of being what needs to be done to advance the cause of racial justice in America. invisible to the white population. What is Race? What is Racism? Following the advice of the King in Alice in Wonderland, I “begin at the beginning” by Hence, racialized actors pursue not just addressing some racial theory. We cannot continue “objective” race-based interests, but also subjective discussing race matters by accepting the premise that or emotional ones. (On this, please see the book by race is the fulcrum of things, a premise that reifies the Paula Ionide, The Emotional Politics of Racism.) existence of the category. Race is absolutely nothing I have labeled the Post-Civil Rights racial without racism. Racism is the engine that creates the regime as the “new racism” and argued that its conditions for races to exist through racialization dominant practices, unlike those typical of the Jim (Omi and Winant 1986). Race then is “socially Crow period, tend to be subtle, institutional, and constructed,” but as is the case with all social seemingly non-racial (Bonilla-Silva 2001). For categories, it is a never-finished product—it must example, whereas school or residential segregation always be recreated through practices in the were maintained in the past through direct everyday. This implies that “race” has fractures, exclusionary strategies, today they are reproduced in imperfections, and ambiguities which allow us to do a seemingly “non-racial” fashion. Neighborhood political work to change things. If race was a finished segregation, for instance, is accomplished through thing, there would be no point in doing politics in the steering by realtors, white property owners relying on race arena as actors’ views, postures, and likely white networks to get renters or buyers or using actions would be preordained. clever strategies to exclude minority clients, and But beginning our conversations on racism redlining by banks. rather than on race is not enough. We must still do In White Supremacy and Racism in the Post- something harder: challenge the dominant narrative Civil Rights Era (2001), I added an important detail regarding what racism is all about, the racism-is- to my original argument—the idea that although prejudice perspective which focuses attention on the some of the practices may not be covert and subtle, 3 they are so by virtue of being invisible to the white Prevention (CDC) reveal that between 1968 and population. For example, Post-Civil Rights’ racial 2011, blacks were, on average, 4.2 times more likely control practices (police brutality, racial profiling, to be killed by cops than whites, so police brutality is and community surveillance) although not not a new concern (CDC 2012). Police brutality and “overwhelmingly covert” are part of the “new shootings have been a consistent fact of life for racism” because (1) they are perpetrated by state people of color in America. Second, the vilification officers (actors regarded as objective and legitimate of black and brown folks by regular white folks, by whites), (2) the agencies in charge (police which allows them to be okay with the violence departments and criminal justice system) are deemed inflicted upon us by the police, began way back but racially neutral, (3) whites perceive crime as intensified in the 1960s. This vilification has black/brown, hence, whatever happens to “them,” it crystallized in a controlling image that Kathryn is okay, and (4) the incidents that happen (e.g., Russell-Brown labels as the “criminalblackman” Rodney King, A. Diallo, Trayvon, etc.) and garner (1998) as well as what historian Heather Ann public attention are treated as “isolated cases.” Thompson calls the “criminalization of urban space” (Thompson 2010). Both images have facilitated measures, laws, and policing tactics that have produced our mass incarceration system. Police brutality and shootings Thus, Donald Trump’s claim to bring back have been a consistent fact of life “law and order” and his endorsement of tactics such as “stop and frisk” are not new developments. for people of color in America. Finally, and this is key, the bulk of racial practices and behaviors that keep folks of color in “their (new but still subordinated) place,” are of the new racism or hegemonic variety. Although our focus on violence is understandable, we need to be analytical and political about how racial inequality is reproduced in this period. We are not in a New Jim Crow Era as racial domination in schools, jobs, stores, or in the streets is mostly, albeit certainly not exclusively, accomplished through “now you see it, now you don’t” tactics. When folk of color are asked “May I help you?” at Nordstrom, or told by a teacher that they may be good in physical education, or declined for a job or denied admission to college based on exams that do not predict much, or charged more for a loan Source: pixabay.com independent of their financial profile, or steered into a different neighborhood by a smiling realtor, or told Cell phones and social media have made that their accomplishments on the job are due to these incidents more visible, but nonetheless, this affirmative action, we must understand that all of violence is regarded by most whites as legitimate and these things are examples of the “new racism.” non-racist. Perhaps since the murder of Although it may not seem politically sexy to organize Trayvon Martin, we have focused intensely on one against these slippery things, they are the core aspect of the “new racism” control tactics: police practices that maintain the racial monster we face brutality. This is expected as social mobilization these days. always follows incidents that galvanize people’s attention and we have had plenty of opportunities. Watching the news gives the impression that we are indeed in what Michelle Alexander (2010) labels in …the nasty racial discourse of her book as the “New Jim Crow,” but I want to suggest that this interpretation limits our ability to the past has been, for the most understand what is going on, and of what we should part, replaced by a more do. First, although we think police brutality and “civilized racism” that I label shootings of black folks are on the rise, cause-of- “color-blind racism.” death data from the Centers for Disease Control and 4 Contemporary Racial Ideological Field for the most part, replaced by a more “civilized In my book, Racism Without Racists (2010), racism” that I label “color-blind racism.” By this I I argue that a new racial ideology dominates the mean the new dominant racial ideology anchored in landscape: color-blind racism.