While I agree with most of what Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor wrote in her article, "Civil rights and civil wrongs: Racism in America today" (ISR 32), I must take issue with her interpretation of survey data suggesting that white attitudes about race have become more liberal as a result of the civil rights movement.

What has changed is not the degree of racism within the white population, but rather the manner in which that racism is expressed. Prior to the civil rights movement, the open expression of racist attitudes was socially acceptable and therefore commonplace. While unambiguous, in-your-face expressions of racism still exist, they have largely been supplanted (particularly in the public realm) by a more subtle, but no less pernicious, form of bigotry sociologists sometimes call "color-blind racism."

Color-blind racism relies on a peculiar kind of cognitive dissonance. As sociologist Jennifer L. Pierce has written, "(white) Americans proclaim the virtues of a color-blind society at the same time as they do everything possible to be self-conscious about race and racial matters." While staunchly denying that they are racists, the vast majority of white Americans "choose to live in predominantly white neighborhoods, work in racially segregated occupations, and, if given the opportunity, hire white employees rather than African Americans."

Taylor’s own article aptly demonstrates this point. While only 1 percent of white Americans admit they would move if an African American moved in next door, the fact is that rates of residential segregation in the U.S. have increased, not decreased, since the 1970s. While 92 percent of white Americans claim that they believe that white and Black children should attend school together, the fact is that schools today are more segregated than ever and are becoming increasingly so. Clearly, the vast majority of white Americans, regardless of what they might say on a given survey, believe that "good neighborhoods" are white neighborhoods, and that "good schools" are white schools. Even more telling is the fact that a majority of white Americans still see affirmative action as a form of "reverse racism" that advances the fortunes of "unqualified" minorities at the expense of more deserving whites.

The bottom line is that while the civil rights movement may have won significant gains for African Americans, white Americans as a whole are as racist today as they ever were.

Dennis Fritz

Austin, Texas

Keeanga—Yamahtta Taylor responds:

Mr. Fritz ends his letter with the statement, "white Americans as a whole are as racist today as they ever were," thereby refuting the avalanche of statistics provided in the article detailing the lasting and transformative impact the civil rights movement had on the consciousness not only of those directly involved in the movement but on millions of others. It is precisely for this reason that most whites came to support affirmative action in the early seventies. Even in a poll taken as late as 1995, a majority–53 percent–of white males (the group that is supposed to be most doggedly against affirmative action) said they supported affirmative action.

Moreover, Mr. Fritz’s explanation that all whites just hide being racist today when they were outspoken racists before doesn’t make any sense. What changed? Why is it no longer acceptable to be openly racist? The movement had an enormous impact which explains why it is no longer socially acceptable to be an open racist. This isn’t to say that there are no racist white people in this country. Nor is it to deny that probably most ordinary white people buy into any number of racist ideas about Blacks, just as ordinary Blacks may buy into any number of racist ideas about Arabs or Latinos. But these are questions of consciousness–which changes depending on the level of struggle in the society aimed at combating society’s "ruling ideas."

Mr. Fritz also blames white workers for neighborhood and school segregation. He even blames white workers for hiring white employees rather than Blacks. But there is an important distinction to be made between the false consciousness of white (and non-white) workers–in terms of their acceptance of racist ideas sometimes or in some cases most times–and having the social power to actually carry out the acts of discrimination.

White workers aren’t the cause of segregation. It was the federal government’s so-called fair housing act that codified housing discrimination in the 1940s–which continues to influence housing patterns today. Moreover, it’s not white workers, but banks and lending institutions that refuse Blacks loans and mortgages at higher rates, which then impacts where one is able to live. It was the federal government for years that refused to forcibly integrate schools. The civil rights movement forced the government to change its stated policy, but it has been the federal courts that have refused–for the last 30 years–to put any teeth into forcing states and cities to comply with the demands of integration.

So what’s your alternative?