"No Racism Here": The Internalization of Color-Blind Racist Ideology Among U.S. and Foreign-Born Black Undergraduates at Two Predominantly White Universities

• In Event: 72.065 - Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: 72.065-3 - Student Issues in Higher Education: Race and Gender

Abstract

The findings presented in this paper are part of a larger dissertation study of 42 Black students attending two predominantly white universities. My paper focuses on the minority of foreign and U.S. born Blacks who claimed to have never experienced racism either on or off-campus. Through this paper I explore how Bonilla-Silva’s (2006) framework for color-blind racism might be internalized by Black students. The theoretical perspectives considered within this paper are intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991; Dei, 2000; Hill Collins, 2000), racial identity development theories (Cross, 1978; Sellers, 1998), assimilation and acculturation theories (Berry, 2001, Ogbu, 1987; Portes and Zhou, 1993), and theories of ‘racelessness’ as a survival strategy (Fordham, 1988; Smith and Lalonde, 2002).

Author

• Alana C. Butler, Cornell University