Student Reaction to Racism without Racists: Comparing Race, Class, Gender, Age and Course Delivery Method

• In Event: 130 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Racial and Ethnic Attitudes

Abstract

Bonilla-Silva’s critique of colorblind racism is not easily swallowed by students. Here we focus on a newly created course on colorblind racism to analyze student responses to this challenging text. Our disparate locations at our own university allow us to compare nontraditional students taking the course online from a white instructor with traditional students taking a face-to-face class with a black instructor. Specifically, the nontraditional students were strikingly candid and reflective about their own perpetuation of cultural racism, toward all racial groups. However, they often fell back on individualistic solutions that relied on abstract liberalism’s faith in the goodness of social institutions, as opposed to seeing racism as embedded in institutional policy. In contrast, the traditional students were most reflective when they were able to ‘discover’ the veracity of the data based on real-world experiences, and most continued to be colorblind mainly out of habit. Traditional students of color, although initially resistant to the ideas, were surprisingly receptive as they matched their experiences to those described by Bonilla-Silva. Traditional aged white students were more resistant to the ideas, with white males being most resistant as ‘measured’ by non-participation and ultimately, their withdrawal from the course. Yet across the various student-instructor combinations, students still come away from the text with a “racism inside individuals” outlook, despite Bonilla-Silva’s avowed intent to ground his analysis in a systemic concept of racism. More effectively connecting Bonilla-Silva’s colorblind racism analysis to the larger reality of institutional and systemic racism in society remains the challenge.

Authors

• Eileen O'Brien, Saint Leo University

• Janis Prince, Saint Leo University