Post-Reading Questions: Week Five

As I stated in class, there is a change in the readings for next week: The Lionel Cantu reading is not in your reader; please read The Combahee River Collective Statement (click link to get PDF). 

Why does Eduardo Bonilla-Silva refer to CBR as 'racism lite' ?(Bonilla-Silva, 3)

Is this video racist? Why or why not? What are the points she is trying to prove in this film?

Who stands to gain by using Colorblind racism, why?

Brainstorm some of the common rebuttals that explanations of CBR might receive? How would you counter those? 

Here is a link to some of scenarios we discussed in class- to you, which ones are "obviously" indicative of CBR? Which ones do you feel somewhat ambiguous about? Why?

Bell and Hartmann argue: "Racial inequalities, not to mention racism itself, are big structural elephants. This creates a real, albeit seemingly comfortable, tension in the diversity discourse: people have the ability to explicitly talk about race without ever acknowledging the unequal realities and experience of racial differences in American society- a phenomenon Andersen (1999) calls 'diversity without oppression'" (Bell and Hartmann, 905).
What major aspect of American race relations is 'left out' when people talk about diversity? Is this a problem?

Why do we study CBR in Ethnic Studies? Does it matter in our pursuit of social justice?

Do you think that CBR is a useful tool in understanding race in the United States today? Why? 

How do you feel about all of this? Do you find it reassuring? Challenging? Ridiculous?