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Abstract
Our aim in this paper is to develop an alternative conceptualization of post-civil rights racism-one primarily, although not exclusively, directed against people socially defined as Black-that we refer to as benevolent racism. Unlike other forms of post-civil rights racism, benevolent racism is not predicated on the usual process of de-racialization. That is, rather than invoking the liberal ideal of "neutrality " or color-blindness as a way to dodge, deny, or defend the racialized social system that supports White privilege (as with other types of post-civil rights racisms), benevolent racism ostensibly acknowledges and often condemns a system of White privilege. However, it does so in a way that further legitimizes and reinforces racist attitudes, policies, and practices in the name of "benevolent" aims-le., in the name of supporting, empowering, and/or defending the Black community. After providing a brief history of racial benevolence within US racist discourse, we address how its current manifestation differs from previous renditions and draw from various sources to provide current examples of benevolent racism. We conclude with a brief statement about the importance of understanding benevolent racism for contemporary research and anti-racist activism.
Introduction
A large body of social scientific literature addresses different types of racisms that developed in the United States during the post-civil rights era. What recent writers have referred to as symbolic racism (Kinder & Sears, 1981; Hughes, 1997), laissez faire racism (Bobo, Kluegel & Smith, 1997), and color blind racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2003a; Bonilla-Silva, 2006) are all examples. While there are significant differences among these variants, none relies on the idea of innate racial hierarchies (e.g., White supremacy as a "biological fact"), nor are they manifested in the form of blatant prejudice and legal discrimination, as during the Jim Crow era. Instead, all the aforementioned strains of post-civil rights racism operate on the basis of liberal ideals such as meritocracy, egalitarianism, self-reliance, and free markets. Specifically, liberal values that are presumably racially neutral are invoked by members of the dominant group (i.e., Whites) to, among other things: (1) reject policies such as affirmative action that are designed to challenge racial inequality (e.g., Bobo and Kleuegel, 1993; Drake and Hollsworth, 1996; Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, & Krysan, 1997; Pierce, 2003; Augostinos, Tuffin, & Every, 2005); (2) assert the presumed...