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Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva is Professor of Sociology at
Duke University, focusing in the areas of racial stratification
and race relations.
Abstract
"The Invisible Weight of Whiteness: The Racial Grammar
of Everyday Life in Contemporary Amerika"
If a movie has two black actors,
it is a “black movie.” But
if a movie has mostly white actors, it is just a movie. If
one attends a college that is mostly black, one is in a HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities).
But if one attends any of the mostly-white colleges and universities
in America, one attends just a college or a university. Twenty
percent of the children that are abducted in this country are
minority children, but very few of the stories about abducted
children one sees on TV are about minority children. In this
talk I will argue that the reason why whites (and some minorities)
do not see and interpret the aforementioned things the way they
should is because there is a racial grammar—a deep level of
race cognition which like grammar operates collectively and
interpelates subjects in an almost invisible way—that shapes
the views, emotions, and even actions of all subjects in the
racial polity. The “data” I will use to make my case will not be the one often invoked by social scientists
albeit at the end of my lecture, I will address why I believe
empirical work on racial disparities is quite limited as a
tool to transform the racial order of things. I will conclude
by exhorting the audience to realize the severe limitations
of the “rational” approach to racial change and urge them to
work, “as social analyst Bob Marley articulated so well, for
mental, epistemological, and practical liberation from the
tentacles of white supremacy.”
This topic will be presented on Saturday, April 18th at 11:00 a.m. as part of the closing keynote address.
Select Publications
"White Logic, White Methods: Race, Epistemology, and the Social Sciences," with Tukufu Zuberi, Rowman and Littlefield, 2008.
Associate Editor, "Sociology, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences", Macmillan, 2007.
"Look, A Negro! Reflections on the Human Rights Approach to Racial Justice, in Race, Human Rights & Inequality," edited by Angela Hattery, Earl Smith, and David G. Embrick, Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.
"Racism Without Racists" (Second Edition), Rowman and Littlefield, 2006.
“They Should Hire the One with the Best Score: White Sensitivity to Qualification Differences in Affirmative Action Hiring Decisions,” with Brent Berry, Ethnic and Racial Studies 31:2, February, 2008.
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