Book, Racism without racists: the racism of color blindness and persis[LS]

The brutal and fatal attack on George Floyd by four police officers in the United States in June, generating anti-racist protests across the planet, is terribly symmetrical to that suffered by a black businesswoman in São Paulo who was immobilized by a police officer stepping on her neck a month later. The most terrible and cowardly face of racism shows itself when it is naturalized and operationalized by State institutions and representatives, without appearing manifestly racist. Bonilla-Silva's book clearly shows the forms and intensity of structural racism permeating North American society. And in Brazil, by extension, because the similarities are evident. If we want to dismantle the structures of inequality, the author concludes, we will have to dismantle the structures of power, oppression, domination and prejudice. Because they are one and the same thing. By electing Obama in 2008, the United States of America thought it had left behind the institutionalized racism that had characterized its history. Today, it is known that what was left behind was this illusion. Racism Without Racists is a book for anyone who wants to understand how racism perpetuates itself, consciously or unconsciously disguised in a discourse challenging political correctness. But also, and especially, for those, the vast majority in this country, who still think that the best way to combat racism is to pretend that it doesn't exist. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, professor of sociology at Duke University, demonstrates, based on case analyzes and field research, how the discourse and notion that skin color does not matter (the “racism of racial blindness”) have been instrumental in the permanence of prejudice. He debunks the arguments, stock phrases, and narratives that white people in the US use to justify racial inequality. This is not, however, a problem limited to North Americans, as we know and as the police (here and there) constantly remind us. “Racial democracy” by definition, Brazil has extensive experience in disguising racism in the seriousness of economists’ spreadsheets. Inconvenient like any good social scientist, Bonilla-Silva makes us recognize our everyday racism – in others, but also in ourselves.