Even though some exploitative practices may be in the past, the legacy of their unjust structures remains, and carries through into decision-making about climate change today, he says. "Ultimately our economic system has at its core this notion that in the pursuit of capital accumulation and profit, some people can be sacrificed, and that has overwhelmingly been people in the Global South," he says. "So we have to understand the connection between slavery, colonialism and racialised capitalism, which creates the conditions for the climate crisis." Roberts distilled his approach to race in one of the court’s most controversial cases in 2007. The court ruled 5-4 along ideological lines that a public school district in Seattle couldn’t consider race when assigning students to schools, even for the purposes of integration. I think the evidence I will cite doesn’t settle that question. In fact, whether you are racist may be less important than we tend to think.

Here’s an example of how this kind of thing can occur, from a 2005 American study. In this study, participants were asked to choose the better applicant for the job of police chief. There were two candidates. One was “street wise” while the other had more formal education. One was male, one was female. Some experimental subjects were given the choice between a male street wise applicant and a female formally educated applicant, while some got the options reversed, with the female applicant being the street wise one. From their perspective, it looked as though they were making a judgement based on what qualifications they thought were required for police chief. They weren’t really: they were making a judgement based on gender, and justifying it, based on a confabulated theory about what qualifications were required for police chief. When they looked at their judgements, they saw a plausible story about qualifications.

I don’t know how common overt racism of the kind captured on the video is today. Questions like that are notoriously difficult to answer, in part because people are often reluctant to express their true attitudes when they know that many others disapprove of them. I understand and have read research evidencing different treatment of people with respect to housing, education, medicine (both in access to and in the ways that doctors view their patients), employment, and most especially the criminal justice system across the board. I get it and agree that as a white person my life is just easier and that is not fair and should be changed. However, I don't agree or expect equality of outcome for all people.

The other group got scrambled sentences that didn’t contain words like this. After the experiment was ostensibly over, the experiments timed how fast the participants moved as they left the lab. Participants who unscrambled sentences containing words that suggested elderly people walked more slowly than the participants in the other group.Some of the nation’s smartest legal minds aren’t big believers in racial bias either, and that could complicate efforts in Ferguson to reduce racial tensions. One of the most provocative and effective books for helping students understand contemporary racial theory and how it connects with their lives When you hear racist attitudes, challenge them; ask people for the reason behind their thinking and encourage them to consider alternatives. The new racism, like God, works in mysterious ways and is quite effective in maintaining white privilege,” Bonilla-Silva says. “For example, instead of saying as they used to say during the Jim Crow era that they do not want us as neighbors, they say things nowadays such as ‘I am concerned about crime, property values and schools.’ “

I think this is a good foundational book on how a majority of whites think. There is an outline of the four major frames: My road trip tells the tale of racial segregation, abetted by Uncle Sam, by local governments, by business interests, and by individuals, all of which say they are offering or chasing powerful “nonracial” incentives. It is a story that needs to be spoken out loud. One representative response to my TED Talk, My road trip through the whitest towns in America, claims: “The whole talk in itself is segregating and racist… It is in our nature to want to keep to our own tribe… Bottlenose dolphins swim with other bottlenose dolphins… Spotted dolphins with spotted dolphins… Why is this so wrong? Why force someone to live in a community they dont [sic] feel at home in?” Still, some people are suspicious of focusing on the word bias. They prefer invoking the term racism because they say it leaves bruises. People claiming bias can admit they may have acted in racially insensitive ways but were unaware of their subconscious motivations. Rusch H. The evolutionary interplay of intergroup conflict and altruism in humans: A review of parochial altruism theory and prospects for its extension. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2014;281(1794). doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.1539Ullucci, K. (1 September 2006). "Book Review: Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States". Urban Education. 41 (5): 533–540. doi: 10.1177/0042085906291929. S2CID 144091498.

Tony Abbott was incensed to be called misogynist recently. Perhaps his conscience, and those of many of his supporters, are clear: they look within to the causes of their negative assessments of Gillard and find only intense dislike of her policies, and therefore a strong negative attitude toward the woman who implements them. But they cannot tell, by looking within, whether their dislike of policies and person is not significantly strengthened by their implicit attitudes. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva is one of the most influential, insightful, and engaging scholars writing on race. His pathbreaking book, now in its sixth edition, continues to be the gold standard for understanding the dynamics of racism and developing a blueprint for what Whites and people of color must do to dismantle white supremacy and create a more ‘humane, inclusive, and democratic’ world.

Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America, Sixth Edition

Our thought – all of us, even the most well-intentioned, the most careful, the most intelligent and well-educated – may be shot through with bias. The images with which we surround ourselves (and advertising is particularly pervasive and egregious in this regard, especially as concerns sexism) may produce stereotypes that subtly and not so subtly undermine our commitments to equality. We need to reduce the level of guilt but increase the level of responsibility we take for it,” he says. “I didn’t choose to internalize these messages, but it’s inside of me and I have to be careful.”