RACISM WITHOUT RACISTS: How Racism Works in the USA and the Western World

Racial domination does not depend on the “racists,” but on the actions, beliefs, and practices of regular people.

Professor Bonilla-Silva will begin his presentation with a discussion of how best to define racism. This will be followed with a description of the “new racism”—the system that maintains racial inequality in the contemporary western world. Third, he will address colour-blind racism—the hegemonic racial ideology that glues the West. Lastly, he will illustrate how racism works organizationally with the case of HWCUs (historically white colleges and universities). He will conclude with a discussion of the practices, policies, and politics needed to overcome “racism without racists.”

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Eduardo Bonilla-Silva is the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of sociology at Duke University.

He gained visibility in the social sciences with his 1997 American Sociological Review article, “Rethinking Racism: Toward a Structural Interpretation,” where he challenged analysts to study racial matters structurally.

His book, Racism without Racists (6th edition in 2022), is a classic in the field of racial and ethnic studies. His 2012 White Logic, White Methods: Racism and Methodology (with Tukufu Zuberi) has helped analysts rethink how to best measure the impact of racial stratification and think about how Eurocentrism affects their work.

Bonilla-Silva has received many awards, most notably, the 2021 W.E.B. Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award given by the American Sociological Association. He served as President of the American Sociological Association in 2017-2018.