The Post-Racial Ideology in Contemporary America: An Examination of the National Dialogue Surrounding   State of Florida v. George Zimmerman   and   Abigail Fisher v. University of Texas Julius Moye3651029Prof. Georg SchildRassismus und Sklaverei in der USA

"We have a black president. We have a black attorney

general. We have a black Supreme Court justice. One of the

most revered athletes in the nation is a black golfer. In

fact, Americans worship and adore black athletes, movie

stars, and musicians. Yet Tavis Smiley has the gall to say

on national television America shows contempt for black men.

And this race baitor has his own nationally televised

program to spout such nonsense on almost a nightly basis.

What people such as him should realize is that it is they

that are keeping racism alive in this nation, and that

Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream will never come to fruition

as long as they continue to fan the fires of racial

discontent. They should all be ashamed of themselves." (1)

These are the words of Noel Sheppard, a writer for a

conservative media outlet called NewsBusters, commenting on

an interview with Tavis Smiley on ABC concerning the George

Zimmerman case (2). While a relatively marginal figure and

while some may dismiss this as simply banter from "the

right", these words seem exemplary of the ideological

foundation of the post-racial attitude that permeates

America, regardless of one's political orientation. In the

national American dialogue, what has been deemed as progress

by people of color in this country apparently translates to

the end of racism. This paper will attempt to briefly

dissect this post-racial attitude that has comprised a

prevalent shift in dominant American ideology concerning

race in recent years. To do such, it will examine two of the

most highlighted court cases in the public spotlight

regarding the issue of race from the last several years:

State of Florida v. George Zimmerman and Abigail Fisher v. University of Texas.

A Brief Dissection of the Post-Racial Ideology

There have, especially in recent times, been several

manifestations of what can be called the “post-X” ideology;

with X being the variable for any qualifier be it race,

gender, etc. The 1950's rang with the claims of "the end of

ideology", exemplified by Daniel Bell in his famous book of

the same name. It was meant that all of the underlying

principles of the social system were in their final state,

that "sensible" individuals realized that political ideology

had been exhausted and that all that was needed were

technological adjustments to the extant system (3). Once the

Cold War ended, Francis Fukuyama and others posited the “end

of history”, meaning that the neoliberal system of

capitalist commerce was the finality of our global social

order. As Slavoj Zizek points out in examining the role of

this ideology in regards to the dialogue around our

contemporary economic systems: “Words are disappearing. We

are Fukuyamaists” (4). A similar phenomenon can be seen

occurring in the discourse of race relations in the United

States today and with formidable clout.

Currently, one of the dominant narratives among Americans

has become the “post-racial society”. In a similar vein to

Daniel Bell’s work and the Fukuyamaist tradition, it has

become common in the national dialogue to hear that the

current social system is functioning properly in regard to

race and the most effective way to deal with the race

problem is deal with racism “wherever it may rear its ugly

head” (5) or even not to discuss it. As Mr. Sheppard put it

in the quote above, to discuss race is to “fan the fires of

racial discontent” or to be a “race baitor”, a term that has

become popular particularly among the white national

community in recent years.

What has then been put forth in the national ideology

is the notion that the country on the whole has “moved

beyond race and that race no longer structures our thinking

or our actions” (6). Many trace this to the success of

certain African-American individuals in sports, media and

politics and the election of Barrack Obama in 2008, perhaps

one of the largest milestones in the supposed corroboration

of post-racialism in recent years. The notice of these

individual accomplishments coupled with the observation that

many aspects of what have traditionally been deemed as

belonging to another culture or group have become more

central to the general American cultural landscape, such as

the major takeoff in record sales of Hip-Hop music amongst

white listeners or the fact that salsa has replaced ketchup

as the best-selling condiment in the United States.

As nice as this idea does sound, it contains

fundamental flaws both epistemologically as well as when

factual and historical elements are brought into the

equation. As Laura Hargarten phrased it, “while the concept

is overall optimistic, that race no longer matters in

society, it is naïve and ignorant” (7). What has been in

actuality an increase in multiculturalism as well as nominal

tokens of progress both in terms of civil rights and social

programs overall has been falsely identified as an end to

the hierarchical racial order that has persisted in the

country’s history, but somehow or another, no longer

persists today. Political philosopher Slavoj Zizek adroitly

dissects this ideological shift in a 2007 lecture at Boston

University:

What I am against is the perception, which is

today more or less automatic, of racism as a

problem of tolerance…For Martin Luther King, one

doesn't fight racism with tolerance, but with

what? Emancipatory political struggle, even armed

struggle. So, why are so many problems today

perceived as problems of intolerance rather than

problems of inequality, exploitation, injustice

and so on? You see my point, that's for me the

problem. Racism is a problem… In this innocent

shift of perspective, there is ideology. Why? I

claim the reason is the liberal, multiculturalist

basic ideological operation; the, let's call it,

'culturalization of politics'. Political

differences- differences conditioned by political

inequality or economic exploitation- are

naturalized, neutralized into cultural

differences. That is, into different ways of life

which are something given, something that cannot

be overcome, so they can only be tolerated. The

cost of this culturalization is the retreat, the

failure of direct political solutions such as

welfare state or various socialist projects.

Tolerance is their post-political Ersatz. (8)

Hence, what has emerged in America is the general

belief that “racism” is an overt act rather than a

structural or systemic operation. For example, calling

someone an offensive racial slur would be deemed as racism.

Yet the fact that while black preschoolers only comprise 16%

of the overall student population, they represent 48% of

those suspended or expelled (9) or that prosecutors are

almost twice as likely to file mandatory minimum sentencing,

ceteris paribus, for blacks than whites (10), these

systematic operations of the social system seem to not

qualify for the application of the “R-word”. Perhaps Omali

Yeshitela, chairman of the U.S. division of the African

People’s Socialist Party, describes this phenomenon best in

saying that, “they teach us about racism and loving

everybody but they don’t tell us that the racism they’re

talking about is simply the ideological underpinning of a

social system based on slavery and colonialism” (11). What

we see in this “post-political Ersatz” is the abstraction of

the notion of a social action (racism) from the environment

in which it operates (the historical and contemporary

societal landscape).

“White Privilege” and the Post-Racial Ideology

To effectively dissect and dismantle this ideological

trend (only a brief attempt will be made here for space’s

sake), one must understand the cultural epistemology of

white America from where it emerged and a stoic observation

of history must be undertaken. To begin with an

investigation into the epistemological foundation upon which

this notion rests, it would be instructive to look towards

the work of Barbara J. Flagg. In her landmark article, Was

Blind But Now I See, published in 1993, Flagg laid the

foundation for a field that later developed into what was

called “Critical White Studies”. The pith of her article was

what she called the “transparency phenomenon”, the

phenomenon in which whites seldom tend to view themselves in

racialized terms (12). In another article by Flagg published

in 2013 reflecting on her past work, she poses a question to

the reader which succinctly lays out this phenomenon’s

socio-cultural manifestation:

For example, if I asked you, a white reader, to

select three adjectives that describe you, would

you be likely to include the word “white”? Do you

think about race as a factor in the way other

whites treat you? Do you think about whiteness as

affecting the way other whites are treated? It’s

likely that you discussed race in connection with

the nomination of Clarence Thomas. But how many of

you had conversations about how race might have

affected the character and personality of Justice

Breyer, or pondered whether his whiteness might

predispose him to a racially skewed perspective on

legal issues? (13).

When the dominant narrative is a white one, a one in

which race is transparent in terms of self-reflection, a

skewed perception of the reality of race relations is an

inevitable consequence. A certain rift is able to develop in

the national American perception in which the normativity

becomes centered on what has historically been considered as

“white”, while others operate in such a reality, but with

certain distinguishing features that “can only be

tolerated”. Going back to the Sheppard quote above, he

posits that Tavis Smiley has a skewed view of the racial

reality in the United States by pointing out the “contempt

[that America has] for black men”, but fails to realize the

way in which his own racial identity may skew his

perceptions. To paraphrase Tim Wise, not only does such an

attitude not address the realities which people of color

face in the country but it also adds insult to injury by

calling people of color who do bring up such issues insane

or unsound by dismissing their claims of that reality out of

hand (14).

For example, scholars have pointed out certain details

in American culture that are demonstrative of this effect.

“From ‘flesh-colored’ bandages or crayons and ‘nude’ hosiery

that depict fair skin to standardized testing, individual

members are judged against characteristics held by the

privileged” (15). Furthermore, in regards to the vernacular

concerning scholarship “Black literature” or “Latino

history” is compared simply to “literature” or “history”.

In other words, in American culture and semantics, race is a

fundamental quality to the description of other non-whites

as well as the epistemological foundation of one’s

existential understanding of the self; unless you happen to

be white.

However, to look into the individual epistemology of

this phenomenon is not enough to fully understand its roots.

Eric Arnesen worries that those in the field of Critical

White Studies would put forth a prescription for change in

which “envisioning the withering away of whiteness [as an

oppressive and normative social structure] requires nothing

more than imagination” (16). Arnesen is certainly correct to

put forth the worry that the aforementioned depoliticized

Ersatz could undermine the very prescription for the problems

that scholars in the field are hoping to alleviate. What

emerged, then, in the field was the term “white privilege”

which, as we will see, underlies the transparency

phenomenon. Hence, “[b]oth material conditions and socio-

cultural factors contribute to the resilience of white

privilege” (17). Peggy McIntosh describes white privilege as

“an invisible knapsack of special provisions, assurances,

tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes,

compass, emergency gear and blank checks” (18). With a

knapsack that is unknowingly so full, it is easy to see how

the national dialogue, mainly originating from white

America, could develop into post-racialism. Very rarely do

many whites in America think of themselves in racialized

terms and thus are not so quick to see its importance in the

social system. One does not think so deeply into what is

reflective of the flesh-colored bandage if it matches the

flesh.

The State of Florida v. George Zimmerman

Hence, maintaining this understanding of such a cultural

lens we can more accurately describe two of the biggest,

most widely discussed race-related court cases in America in

the past decade; one of which being The State of Florida v. George

Zimmerman. To attempt to dissect the specifics of the case

itself do not do much for the purpose of American

reflection, for that is strictly a legal and individualistic

matter. What is of importance however, are the conversations

that are its consequence. The information one can garner

about national ideologies from the dialogue surrounding

court case outcomes is immense and the trial of George

Zimmerman in July 2013 provided one of the most highly

discussed legal cases regarding the issue of race since the

trial of O.J. Simpson. As Doug Linder said regarding the

Simpson case, “no one can deny the pull it had on the

American public” (19) and the same is certainly true for the

2013 trial.

On February 26, 2012 Trayvon Martin, a 17-year old black

teenager, was walking back to his family’s house from a

local convenience store. During his walk back, he was

spotted by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer

in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman then phoned the non-emergency

police response line at 7:09 P.M. of that evening and

describes Trayvon to the dispatcher. Zimmerman says, “we’ve

had some break-ins in my neighborhood and there’s a real

suspicious guy” and stated that he seemed like “he was on

drugs” (20). Trayvon then runs away from the scene, some say

because he was up to no good while others claim that it was

out of fear of his pursuer. Later evidence released on March

20, 2012 by Benjamin Crump however suggests the latter. An

affidavit from Martin’s girlfriend states that he said, “I

think this dude is following me,” in a phone call between

the two during this incident. She replies, “Baby be careful.

Just run home” (21). Zimmerman then proceeds to follow

Martin while still on the line with the dispatcher. The

dispatcher asks if Zimmerman is following the teen and when

he responds in the affirmative the dispatcher tells him, “We

don’t need you to do that” (22). The two later confront and

at sometime between 7:16 P.M. and 7:17 P.M. the infamous

altercation between Martin and Zimmerman occurred. At 7:17

Officer Ricardo Ayala of the Sanford Police Department

arrives on the scene, by which time Trayvon Martin was

already dead. A month and a half after the incident, it was

announced by Special Prosecutor Angela Corey that Zimmerman

was being charged with second-degree murder. The trial

launched on June 10th of the following year and ultimately

the jury rendered a not guilty verdict on all counts on July

13, 2013 after two days of deliberation.

The factual discrepancies of that evening are still

debatable and will never reach the public light for that

night has long passed. What is basking in that light however

is the national discussion surrounding the case and that can

easily be observed in order to tell something about the

post-racial ideology in America. As Jeffery Toobin wrote in

an opinion piece in the The New Yorker, “The conclusions [of

the case] almost tell more about the observers than the

underlying facts” (23).

It is neither the purpose of this section to attempt to

assess the evidence brought before the court during the

trial nor the legal soundness of the ruling. What is

important to assess though, is the fact that the murder of

Trayvon Martin and the trial of George Zimmerman brought the

topic of race to the forefront of American discussion in a

way that had not been done for years. The main wedge between

the two sides of this national debate over the case was the

justness of Zimmerman’s acquittal and the role that race

played in both the killing and the trial. To speak to the

former, the justness and legitimacy of the ruling, such an

assessment is a legal matter and gets muddled with Florida

Statute 776.013 which makes legal the use of deadly force if

“a person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of

imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or

herself or another” (24). This is known in non-legal terms

as the controversial “Stand Your Ground Law”. Whether or not

the Stand Your Ground Law is just or simply legally logical

is another issue all together. Additionally, due to

Zimmerman’s (still questioned) testimony, the court waived

the Stand Your Ground hearings later in the trial and made

it a matter of classic self-defense. But it is evident that

with its existence at the time of the trial, it enabled

Zimmerman to walk and that is that for the individual case.

Yet as we can see, the trial and the wake it left amongst

the American public speak volumes to the state of racial

ideology in the country.

During the period in which the death of Trayvon Martin

and his murderer’s trial and eventual acquittal was the

countrywide scuttlebutt, a spectrum of opinion appeared.

While these opinions may not necessarily be correlated with

political leanings, the vocabulary that has been used to

define them is the same used to describe political ideology.

On one side were those who were appalled by the entire

spectacle and thought that the role of race in the entirety

of the incident was grand and undeniable, a pole that is

generally labeled as “the left wing”. A quote from Tavis

Smiley during a discussion televised on ABC News the day

after the acquittal epitomizes this general sentiment:

[W]e never seem to accept the fact that race in

this country is real, that color will get you

killed. And every time we have one of these cases,

and I believe in looking at a case-by-case

situation, but here's the problem, in the

aggregate, every time you have this issue,

somebody can always explain away why this person

got off, why this person was not found guilty, and

what we have is a bunch of dead black men. (25)

The other side of the spectrum was comprised of what was

called the “rightwing” or the “Zimmerman camp” which

generally was rooting for the ruling of innocence on

Zimmerman’s behalf and was behind the court’s decision when

it was finally made. This side was characterized mostly by

its alleging to the innocence of Zimmerman but also by the

blaming and demonization of Trayvon Martin after his death.

For example, Geraldo Rivera of the Fox News Channel stated

that, “I think the hoodie is as much to blame responsible

for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was” (26).

Additionally, many in the “conservative blogosphere” and

news outlets were digging through Martin’s Tweets and past

history to raise doubts about his character. Michelle

Goldberg examines this campaign by noticing “the

similarities between the way people talk about Martin and

the way they talk about rape victims, whose clothes and

histories are often subject to scrutiny no matter how cut-

and-dried the case seems.” (27)

Indeed, it is wise to be prudent when traversing such

analytical terrain and in making value judgments of the

poles due to high media attention given to both black

criminality as well as white-on-black violence which have

been skewing ideas of race relations in America for years.

In fact, these inflated, media-driven viewpoints often lay

the foundation for the formation of polarizing views.

However, what was perhaps the most interesting aspect of the

public opinion was the particular way in which neither

Trayvon Martin nor George Zimmerman was put to the fore, but

also the greater and ambiguous entity of race itself. During

the year and a half that these events were unfolding, the

post-racial ideology that sat more or less unshaken in

mainstream discourse was now being dissected on a national

level. A correspondent for Al Arabiya News wrote, “[T]he

recent acquittal of a white man for the shooting and killing

of an African-American teenager in Florida has rekindled

long simmering debates about racial inequality and gun

violence in the United States…At the root of the case, for

many, is the argument of racial discrimination” (28).

The idea that race is still a significant factor in the

lives of Americans was under great scrutiny during this

period. For many, the Zimmerman-Martin incident was

confirmation of long held conceptions of a society plagued

with racism. Many were speaking against the individual

racism epitomized by the alleged racial profiling conducted

by George Zimmerman. Others, such as the Interim Dean of the

Howard University School of Law, spoke against structural

racism: “The ‘not guilty’ verdict reinforces the belief that

there is no justice in a justice system when it permits the

killer of an unarmed African-American male teenager to go

free” (29). But what was revealed about the post-racial

ideology that permeates America was the most fascinating. Of

course, the national discourse covered many different topics

from gun control to racial profiling to institutional

racism. Hence, a simplification must be made for analytical

purposes. Yet there were certain aspects of the discourse,

generally emanating from white America, as the data will

show, that embodied the idea of post-racialism that this

paper seeks to tackle.

There certainly were those who were adamantly against

what they perceived as either the prevalence of cultural

racism the United States, structural racism in America’s

institutions, or both. From the “I Am Trayvon Martin”

campaigns to the massive demonstrations in Atlanta,

Washington D.C., New York and other places, a backlash

against the post-racial ideology was certainly taking shape.

In fact, hundreds of protestors closed down Interstate I-10

chanting “Justice for Trayvon” and demonstrating against the

broad and ambiguous creature that is American racism.

Clearly, and whether consciously or not, the “anti-post-

racial” ideology that was bubbling under the discursive

crust of mainstream American dialogue had broken through to

the surface. However, the general idea of race as an

antiquated notion- a factor that has little to do with one’s

life trajectory in America-was and still is, in Gramscian

terms, the “discursive hegemon” in American national

dialogue.

This can be seen in both a quantitative and qualitative

analysis. Shortly after the verdict of the Zimmerman trial

was concluded, the Pew Research Center for the People and

the Press conducted a national survey between July 17 and

July 21 in order to gather public opinion on the matter.

Their data was reflective of the imbuing of the post-racial

attitude in the American discourse. In relation to the case

itself, the Pew Research Center found that nearly as many

Americans were satisfied with the Zimmerman verdict (39%) as

were dissatisfied (42%), with 19% offering no opinion (30).

However, when broken down among racial lines, the

discrepancies between white and black America become more

apparent. Nearly half of whites (49%) claimed to be

satisfied with the verdict while 30% were dissatisfied.

Similar to the data of the total number of surveyed white

Americans one-in-five (21%) offered no opinion. However,

when the data from Black America is analyzed, a distinct

difference can be seen. Only 5% of African-Americans claimed

to be satisfied with the outcome of the trial while the vast

majority (86%) was dissatisfied (with 9% offering no

opinion) (31).

As previously mentioned, the murder of Trayvon Martin

and the Zimmerman acquittal thereafter were reflective of a

menagerie of grievances in America, especially among black

Americans. The issue of whether or not this individual case

and the national discourse surrounding it were grounded on

the concept of race as well as the long battle for white

America to acknowledge the existence and pervasiveness of

racism in the 21st Century were hot topics in the discourse

and the quantitative data from Pew reflects this. In regards

to this national racial dialogue Pew asked, “In this case,

the issue of race is getting more attention than it

deserves” or, “This case, raises important issues about race

that need to be discussed” (32). Again, a distinct rift in

opinion was demonstrated between white and black America

that seems to stem from the ubiquity of the post-racial

ideology laid out above. In the totality of the American

population, 52% said the issue of race is getting more

attention than it deserves, 36% said it raises important

issues that need to be discussed and 12% abstained from the

question. Yet, as with the previous question of satisfaction

with the verdict, the rift was most distinct when the data

from white and black America are compared. More than twice

as many whites (60%) said the issue of race is getting more

attention than it deserves than those who believed it

brought up issues in need of discussion (28%), with a 12%

abstention. In Black America, however, the numbers show a

strikingly different outcome. Only 13% of blacks said the

issue of race is getting more attention than it deserves

while 78% said that it raised important questions of race

that need to be discussed. There was an 8% abstention rate

among black polltakers (33). As this case was the stage upon

which the national racial discourse danced during the start

of the decade, the prominent distinctions surrounding the

notions of race between white and black America also made

themselves apparent in the qualitative data.

The denial that race has a place in national dialogue,

let alone in the portrayal of the contemporary American

society, was a major backlash to the grievances being voiced

by people of color as and after these events were unfolding.

Countless commentators in the news media, on the Internet

and amongst the citizenry were unable to grapple with the

racialized underpinnings of the case and of society as a

whole. It seemed to be an impossible endeavor for many in

white America to wrap their heads around the notion of a

“non-post-racial” America. For example, Fox News contributor

Tamara Holder said on Sean Hannity’s program that, “the

blacks are also making this more of a racial issue than it

should be” (34). Ms. Holder was certainly not alone in this

line of thinking. Randy Alcorn wrote a similar article

concerning the “fallacious” notion that America has a

problem with race in Noozhawk, a Santa Barbara news outlet,

a week after the trial ended:

The vast majority of nonblack Americans are not

racist, especially the younger generation, as

Obama mentioned, for whom race is virtually a

nonfactor. Tens of millions of white voters twice

elected Obama- a black man- president. More

important, racial integration throughout society

is now more the norm than the exception. And

mixed-race marriages only turn the disapproving

heads of the nation’s most primitive cultural

Neanderthals. (35)

As can be seen, Barbara J. Flagg’s notion of the

“transparency effect” in White America came to the fore as

this debate went on. The fact that much of White America had

never needed to view themselves in racialized terms lead to

an inability for many to accept the grievances people of

color were voicing and even deny such grievances outright:

People who believe the Progressive storyline that

America is a racist society believe it because

they want to believe it, even though racist

attitudes, now reserved to the lower classes and

uneducated, no longer have any power or influence

in American society. (36)

Not only does this fail to get at the heart of what

racism is, but it substitutes the real issue- that of

institutionalized racism and a hierarchical and oppressive

social structure- with diatribes about whether or not this

or that individual had race-based “intent”. This type of

reasoning- one in which the notion of race is irrelevant

unless explicitly brought up- harkens back to the ruling of

the historic court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. The court claimed

that, “we consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's

argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced

separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a

badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of

anything found in the act, but solely because the colored

race chooses to put that construction upon it” (37).

This phenomenon of the transparency effect, or “white

privilege”, manifesting itself in the denial of

institutionalized racism can be seen throughout history. The

Plessy v. Ferguson court ruling provides a good example, for

nearly everybody today would say that the Louisiana law of

1890 prohibiting racial intermingling on train cars as well

as similar practices during the Jim Crow era were indeed

cases of institutionalized racism. Yet at the time, as the

previous quote from the 1896 court ruling shows, it was not

thought of as such by American institutional bodies nor by

many within white America. To see this trend continue

throughout history gives a good image of why the denials of

racial discrimination, institutionalized racism, etc. today

are not grounded in reality. Instead, they are grounded on

the cultural epistemology of white America which itself is

grounded on the transparency effect and white privilege.

Another example from the early 1960’s is illustrative of

this point, for few today deny the prevalence of racism

during that part of the century, with assassinations of

black activists, racial segregation and other grievous

indicators of racial hierarchy and institutionalized

oppression. A Gallup Poll from 1962 asked, “In general, do

you think that black children have as good a chance as white

children in your community to get a good education, or don’t

you think they have as good a chance?” Among white

respondents 85% claimed yes, while only 7% said no (there

was a 10% abstention rate). In fact, when Gallup conducted

the survey again in 2013, the number of white respondents

who answered yes dropped by five percentage points (38).

Just as the fish is unaware of the water through which

it swims, many in White America are unaware of the

ramifications of institutionalized racism since they do not

have to deal with it often, if at all. Yet, the backlash

from a large amount of people in white America that was seen

when such issues were brought to the forefront in the

national American dialogue with the case of Trayvon Martin

and George Zimmerman shows something else as well. What it

demonstrated was the fear, conscious or otherwise, emanating

from parts of white America to come to terms with a history

of racism, imperialism and oppression and its contemporary

ramifications. The following three observations from Noam

Chomsky, Charles Lawrence and Tim Wise will bear out this

cultural element of American society. Dr. Noam Chomsky, in

this quote responding to the question of whether racism is

something learnt or something inherently endowed, lays out a

reasonable premise for why this counter-narrative to the

racism prevalent in America was in such force:

It's not so much that racism is in our genes. What

is in our genes is the need for protecting our

self-image. It's probably in our nature to find a

way to recast anything that we do in some way that

makes it possible for us to live with it. It's the

same in the broader social sphere, where there are

institutions functioning, and systems of

oppression and domination. The people who are in

control, who are harming others -- those people

will construct justifications for themselves. They

may do it in sophisticated ways or non-

sophisticated ways, but they're going to do it.

That much is in human nature. One of the

consequences of that can turn out to be racism. It

can turn out to be other things too. (39)

Charles Lawrence offers a similar perspective borrowing

form Freudian theory. He attempts to assert how it is that

this post-racial ideology functions in a psychoanalytic

fashion and thus works towards describing the discursive

phenomena surrounding the nationwide conversation of this

case:

Freudian theory states that the human mind defends

itself against the discomfort of guilt by denying

or refusing to recognize those ideas, wishes and

beliefs that conflict with what the individual has

learned is good and right. While our historical

experience has made racism an integral part of our

culture, our society has more recently embraced an

ideal that rejects racism as immoral. When an

individual experiences conflict between racist

ideas and the societal ethic that condemns those

ideas, the mind excludes his racism from

consciousness. (40).

Finally, racial activist Tim Wise has spent a large

portion of his life as a white man in America attempting to

speak to white America, as well as others, in an effort to

dispel some of these racial illusions. Mr. Wise had an

interesting piece of commentary to say concerning the

Zimmerman case on a radio talk show that inadvertently

worked off of Lawrence’s thesis and really got to the core

of this phenomenon:

[Y]ou have an entire country of people who

themselves have internalized these fears of young

black men. If they admit that that fear in the

case of George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was

unjustified, then they have to look at their own

fears…So if they have to acknowledge that there

might have been something untoward about

Zimmerman’s suspicions of Martin, they would have

to look inward at themselves. And we are not very

good as a society at looking at our own mess, so

we project it onto others. We either project it

onto Martin and say he was the problem or we

project it onto Zimmerman and safely isolate the

problem of racism in him so we don’t have to deal

with our own stuff. We all do it and it needs to

stop. (41).

After exploring the workings of the post-racial

ideology through examining this national-headlining

discourse, we have laid the foundation for an observatory

platform to view how it has played out in America in recent

years. What was a consequence of the post-racial attitude

was the notion of an “even playing field”; a society in

which both people of color and White America have the same

opportunities in economic and sociocultural aspects. This

brought us yet another heated debate in the same summer as

Zimmerman’s acquittal and this time the discussion centered

on affirmative action. While the discourse surrounding the

Zimmerman case dealt more with the epistemological

underpinnings of post-racism, a case brought before the

Supreme Court by Abigail Fisher showed clearly its

behavioral manifestations.

Abigail Fisher v. University of Texas

At around the same time as the Zimmerman hearing, the

national dialogue surrounding another race-related court

case took an interesting, albeit formidable, twist. The idea

of a post-racial America has led many to believe that such a

society functions at more or less the same level for all

groups within it. It has led to the idea that no matter if

one is black or white, red or yellow, they have just about

the same chances of getting a job or getting into a certain

school, so long as they work hard for it. However, this

notion has brought about a sort of fear evident in the

Fisher case and its encompassing rhetoric. The idea of

racism against minorities not being an issue in America

anymore, something our country has “gotten past”, led to a

phenomenon that some have called “white anxiety”. Without

what Derrick Bell Jr. descriptively called “faces at the

bottom of the well” in his book of the same title (42), many

in White America have become worried that the visible

progress of people of color in the country is inevitably

forcing them downwards in terms of opportunities, status and

the like.

Ross Douthat explained such sentiments in a New York

Times opinion piece in 2010: “This [the prospect of

affirmative action and “preference” of minorities for jobs,

schools, etc.] breeds paranoia among elites and non-elites

alike. Among the white working class…alienation from the

American meritocracy fuels the kind of racially tinged

conspiracy theories that [Glenn] Beck and others have

exploited.” (43). An area where this paranoia of the

perceived alienation from the traditional meritocratic

values has been vociferated is in the realm of higher

education. The litigation that Abigail Fisher was able to

bring in front of the Supreme Court in 2012 is an

enlightening example of this mindset due to its occupation

in the national spotlight, thus enabling us to examine the

national discourse surrounding it as well as also

demonstrating its factual and epistemological fallacies.

In 2008 Abigail Fisher, a young, white recent high

school graduate, was distraught when she was denied

admission to her dream school, the University of Texas at

Austin (otherwise known as UT). In the same year, Fisher

asked the Court to declare UT’s policy of race-conscious

admissions as unaligned with the 2003 Supreme Court ruling

of Grutter v. Bollinger, a case concerning the University of

Michigan Law School which stated that race had an

appropriate but limited role in the admissions policies of

public universities. The United States District Court heard

her case in 2009 and upheld the constitutionality of UT’s

admissions policies. The case was then appealed to the Fifth

Circuit for review. However, as with the US District Court,

the Fifth Circuit backed the University of Texas. Finally on

February 21, 2012 the Supreme Court decided to review the

case and it was then that the discourse of affirmative

action, and more generally race-consciousness, symbolized by

the Fisher case was sparked on a national level.

Soon after graduating from Louisiana State University,

Ms. Fisher became the figurehead of a campaign against

affirmative action in universities, ironically called by

some “race-based discrimination”. In fact, this campaign and

Fisher’s case were spearheaded by a conservative activist

named Edward Blum, who came into contact with Fisher by the

fact that he was an old friend of her father. Blum, a former

stockbroker, had actually spent 20 years and millions of

dollars in an effort to push back against the legality of

race-consciousness in “cases at the intersection of race,

public policy and law” (44). Blum had even ensured that

wealthy members of DonorsTrust, a conservative charitable

donor-advised fund, would cover Fisher’s legal expenses.

While Edward Blum, the brains and funds behind the case, may

have been seeking for an abolishment of affirmative action,

Fisher and her lawyers made it clear that they were not

seeking to overturn the aforementioned ruling of Grutter v.

Bollinger. However, they were hoping to drastically limit the

way in which race plays a role in college admissions.

Abigail Fisher herself stated that, “I’m hoping that they’ll

completely take race out of the issue in terms of admissions

and that everyone will be able to get into any school that

they want no matter what race they are but solely based on

their merit and if they work hard for it” (45).

Fisher and her lawyers were instead pushing for the

sole use of Texas House Bill 588 in university admissions

stating that it as well as a “race-blind holistic review of

each application [would] achieve adequate diversity” on

college campuses (46). Known more commonly as Texas’ “Top

Ten Percent Rule”, Bill 588 is a law that guarantees Texas

students who graduated in the top ten percent of their class

automatic admission to all state-funded universities. During

the period between February and October, when the Supreme

Court decided to hear the Fisher case and when the case was

scheduled for deliberation, Amicus briefs were filed by many

groups such as Teach For America, the Asian American Legal

Foundation and the Black Student Alliance at the University

of Texas. Even though the explicit goal of Fisher and her

attorney’s was not to overturn Grutter, the fear that such

could become a possibility was mounting among affirmative

action advocates and other minority voices. These fears

became even more concrete on October 10, 2012 when the

Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case. For example,

Justices Scalia and Roberts made critiques at the legal

foundation of the Grutter ruling. They asked many questions

about the definition of a “critical mass”, which the 2003

case established as the central measure of diversity (47).

Perhaps most outspoken against the consideration of race was

Justice Clarence Thomas who stood adamantly against the use

of race in higher education admissions stating that it

violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and even

equated the arguments for affirmative action with the

“positive good” argued by slaveholders several centuries ago

(48).

Finally, after hearing arguments from both sides, the

Supreme Court in a 7-1 decision remanded the case back to

the lower courts for further proceedings in June of 2013.

Speaking for the majority, Justice Kennedy stated that the

Fifth Circuit did not adequately address the question of

“strict scrutiny”, meaning that a university’s use of

affirmative action is constitutional only if “narrowly

tailored.” The court gave it’s final statement saying that,

“In determining whether summary judgment in the University’s

favor was appropriate, the Fifth Circuit must assess whether

the University has offered sufficient evidence to prove that

its admissions program is narrowly tailored to obtain the

educational benefits of diversity” (49). What may happen in

the lower courts for the University of Texas is anybody’s

guess. Amy Howe writing for the Supreme Court of the United

States blog wrote, “Given the Top Ten Percent Plan’s success

in achieving a diverse student body, the school could face

an uphill battle in convincing the lower court that

it needs to be able to consider race to fill the remaining

slots.” (50). Yet what many are worried about is that the

entire topic of affirmative action could boomerang back up

to the Supreme Court with more far-reaching ramifications

than this 2013 deliberation.

While the case itself ended rather anticlimactically

and only covered an instance in one university, the national

dialogue surrounding affirmative action- an issue that has

always been hotly debated- perhaps reached its climax in

millennial America during this case. While the issue of

affirmative action is certainly a vast topic, the focus for

this particular analysis is on the epistemological

underpinnings of a part of the aforementioned post-racial

ideology that were brought to light due to the Fisher case.

The Fisher case demonstrates, perhaps even more so than the

Zimmerman trial, the trajectory along which the post-racial

attitude in America is traveling. It seems as if the post-

racial idea has come full circle in some areas of White

America’s contemporary social philosophy with what has been

given various titles such as “white anxiety” (51) or “white

whine” (52).

These terms are multifaceted as we will see, but what

they summarize is the occurrence of many in White America to

perceive gains amongst non-whites as detrimental to

themselves or detracting from their own opportunities. These

gains can range from demographic shifts and population

growth to affirmative action programs. However, what has

become a result amongst many has been this previously

described white racial anxiety in which whites have begun to

view themselves as “minorities” that are being discriminated

against. Just as these cultural changes have been pointed to

in affirming that America is a post-racial nation (as

described in the previous sections), these same observations

have become fuel for the fire of white anxiety. In the words

of a La Salle University sociologist, Charles Gallagher, “We

went from being a privileged group to all of a sudden

becoming whites, the new victims…You have this perception

out there that whites are no longer in control or the

majority. Whites are the new minority group” (53).

This trend can be seen in countless situations and its

ubiquity seems to be increasing. For example, the push

against affirmative action or race-based aid programs has

had white activists waving signs such as “diversity is no

excuse for racism.” In early 2013, the Public Religion

Research Institute conducted a controlled survey experiment

to evaluate racially fueled anxieties in White America. They

asked several questions concerning the topic of race one of

which was phrased, “Today, discrimination against whites has

become as big of a problem as discrimination against blacks

and other minorities.” They found that 47% of all Americans

agreed with this statement. When breaking down the data

along the lines of political and religious affiliation, they

found that 71% of white Republicans, 51% of white

Independents, 37% of white Democrats and 61% of those who

identify with the Tea Party agreed with this statement.

Furthermore, they found that 57% of white evangelicals

concurred with this claim as well. (54).

What was also of interest to the pollsters was the

distinction between direct and indirect responses in

analyzing this anxiety. One big problem in poll taking is

the reluctance for people to choose answers that could

potentially put them in a bad light even if they would

choose those options otherwise. This has been called the

Bradley effect, based on the discrepancy between voter

opinion polls and election outcomes in the 1982 Los Angeles

governor’s race in which many voters claimed they would vote

for Tom Bradley, an African-American, even though they

selected a white candidate on election day. (55). This is

fueled by the “social desirability bias” which is the

tendency of respondents in polls to answer questions in a

way that will be favorably viewed by others. As Robert P.

Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, points

out in an article in the Atlantic covering this very study,

“[A]s a nation, we have moved beyond the point where

blatantly racist statements are publicly acceptable…This

positive social norm may make the public less willing to

speak openly and candidly about race, a problem social

scientists call ‘social desirability bias’.” (56).

Therefore, the Public Religion Research Institute

decided to set up their survey to get around this

statistical snafu by using direct and indirect methods of

questioning. They first conducted phone interviews in which

they asked respondents to state if they either agree or

disagree with the statement, “The idea of an America where

most people are not white bothers me.” Among whites there

was only a 13% agreement rate and only slight variation

among subgroups (democrats, age brackets, etc.). Next they

employed what is called a list experiment- a process in

which respondents are asked how many items on a list bother

them without stating which specific items did- with two

demographically identical groups. The first was a control

group with a list of three questions in which previous one

concerning a non-white majority in America was absent. The

second group was the treatment group in which the same three

questions, plus the question concerning a demographically

shifted America. As the research institute stated, “Because

the control and treatment groups were demographically

identical, any variation in the average number of statements

chosen between the groups is solely attributable to

respondents in the treatment group picking the treatment

statement.” (57). Finally, the institute was able to

estimate the proportion of respondents choosing the

treatment statement for any one subgroup (although not for

an individual) by subtracting the mean number of statements

chosen by the treatment group by the mean number of

statements chosen by the control group. This proportion was

called the indirect response.

What the researchers found when they compared the data

from the phone surveys with the data from the list

experiment was reflective not only of a manifestation of

this white anxiety, but also laid bare part of the reality

beneath the post-racial attitude fervently adopted in white

America in recent times. The institute found that while only

13% of all whites responded in the affirmative to the

treatment statement during the phone survey, 31% responded

in the affirmative in after participating in the list

experiment. The following are the statistics of the direct

versus indirect response to the treatment statement in

various subgroups: Southerner (16%/50%); Non-Southerner

(13%/25%); Democrat (11%/33%); Republican (18%/30%); Age 50+

(17%/32%); Age 18-49 (10%/29%); Born-again Protestant

(15%/50%); Not Born-again Christian (14%/23%). (58). This

reflects what Ta-Nehisi Coates described as a more “elegant

racism” that “disguises itself in the national vocabulary”

(59) as well as the unspoken yet seemingly pervasive white

anxiety being examined here.

The phenomenon of white racial anxiety has been covered

rather extensively by scholars interested in the field of

race studies in an effort to understand its causal factors

as well as better map the racial and social topography of

contemporary American society. A large body of work has been

produced on the subject within academia. Most of the work

from the last several decades has revolved around “the

power-threat hypothesis”, which posits that white racial

animosity and anxiety increases in correlation to an

increase in non-white populations in an environment. (60).

In perhaps one of the most comprehensive analyses of the

subject, Marylee Taylor used national cross-sectional data

over a span of 20 years to demonstrate a consistent

correlation between an increase in prejudice and opposition

to race-targeted policies such as affirmative action as the

black percentage of the population in metropolitan areas

increases (61). However in a more multifaceted study out of

Princeton, J. Eric Oliver and Tali Mendelberg point to some

of the pitfalls of this singular-variable approach. As they

said, “these studies conceptualize racial threat solely in

terms of racial environments” and argue that “in the

segregated United States, contextual effects are more

complicated than this, involving both race and socio-

economic status” (62). Pointing out that nearly three-

quarters of whites in the U.S. live in highly segregated

communities in which black residents comprise less than five

percent of the population, they argue that other variables

are necessary to describe this phenomenon.

As their study was released in 2000, recent

developments in the American socio-economic landscape make

this point even more clear. The economic downturn that hit

the country during 2007 and 2008 caused far-reaching strife

across America. Michael Ortiz wrote an article in Truthout

reflecting on this immutable variable in the rise of racial

anxiety:

So, when some people observe growing multicultural

populations in their communities and hear about

demographic projections that indicate a major

shift in the years to come and see a black man

currently residing in the White House, combined

with the fact that the economic recession has

particularly affected working class whites, it

should come as no surprise that white racial

anxiety is growing more intense by the day as

white folks are finally becoming forced to view

their existence as a racial one. (63)

This sort of situation in which middle and working class

white Americans were seeing themselves in social and

economic situations previously only occupied for people of

color and poor whites- groups that have never had much of a

voice in the national discourse- was a shot to the solar

plexus of the white American ideology that was previously

founded on Peggy McIntosh’s “invisible knapsack.” Tim Wise,

speaking on this breakdown in the white American ideology

said, “For the first time since the Great Depression, white

Americans have been confronted with a level of economic

insecurity that we’re not used to. It’s not so new for black

and brown folks, but for white folks this is something new.”

(64).

Now that an examination of this racial anxiety has been

carried out, in the following paragraphs we will briefly

examine how these racial anxieties bore themselves out in

the Fisher case and in the national discourse sparked by

these Supreme Court deliberations. The Abigail Fisher case

along with the arguments put forth by her legal team have

been described as the epitome of modern white anxiety by

many who are critical of her stance. Fisher and those

supporting her cause claimed that the use of race as a

factor in university admissions acts as discrimination

against and acts towards the detriment of potential white

students. However, this viewpoint that people of color are

pushing out the opportunities for whites is founded on white

privilege, fueled by white anxiety and is factually

incorrect.

A quick glance at Fisher’s specific situation will turn

her arguments on her head and make this point clear. In

early August of 2012, the University of Texas filed a brief

for respondents, which is quite illuminating in undermining

the fallacy that Fisher was denied access to the school of

her dreams due to race. The brief stated Fisher wouldn’t

even have been accepted if she had a perfect personal

achievement index (PAI). As the brief stated, “The summary

judgment record is uncontradicted that- due to the stiff

competition in 2008 and petitioner’s relatively low AI

score- petitioner would not have been admitted to the Fall

2008 freshman class even if she had received a perfect PAI

score of 6” (65). It is interesting to note that the

measures Fisher and her attorneys were pushing for, the sole

use of the Top Ten Percent Rule, would not have helped

Fisher’s chances in the admissions process in any case. The

brief continued to break down the racial statistics during

its admissions process, which also shows the erroneousness

of the affirmation that considerations of race kept Fisher

out of UT:

Petitioner also was denied admission to the

summer program, which offered provisional

admission to some applicants who were denied

admission to the fall class, subject to completing

certain academic requirements over the summer.

Although one African-American and four Hispanic

applicants with lower combined AI/PAI scores than

petitioner’s were offered admission to the summer

program, so were 42 Caucasian applicants with

combined AI/PAI scores identical to or lower than

petitioner’s. In addition, 168 African-American

and Hispanic applicants in this pool who had

combined AI/PAI scores identical to or higher than

petitioner’s were denied admission to the summer

program. (66)

Not only does this case give a good and well-discussed

example of the underlying fallacies of this anxiety, but it

also portrays a sense of entitlement buttressed by the

legacy of American white privilege. Tim Wise, in a radio

interview with Ginnie Love on Emancipation Radio, gave his

opinion on this rather one-sided matter saying, “Poor

Abigail Fisher can blame black and brown folks for taking

something, which a) they didn’t take and b) she was not

entitled to.” He continues to address a principal lynchpin

in the structure of white racial anxiety by claiming that

white people are afraid, consciously or not, of “having to

compete on truly equal terms.” (67).

With the Fisher case acting as a prime case study, the

national discourse surrounding the topic of affirmative

action is grounded on this white racial anxiety as well as

factual inaccuracies that continue to feed the former.

Certainly, this anxiety in the case of Fisher is not an

isolated incident. For example, racial activists have

pointed out how today some white students in California

complain that they were unable to attend their university of

choice due to affirmative action even though California

Proposition 209 prohibited the use of race, sex or ethnicity

in consideration by state governmental institutions in 1996

(68). The founding of many institutions trying to tackle the

supposed “underrepresentation” or “disfavor” of white

students is yet another manifestation of this ideology’s

rise in recent years. Edward Blum, the man behind the

Abigail Fisher case, is also the director of the Project on

Fair Representation. According to their website, the

foundations mission is “to facilitate pro bono legal

representation to political subdivisions and individuals

that wish to challenge government distinctions and

preferences made on the basis of race and ethnicity” (69).

In a similar vein, Colby Bohnannon, an Iraq War veteran set

up the Former Majority Association for Equality after he

claimed to have trouble finding scholarship monies when

applying to university. As laid out in his organization’s

mission statement:

The mission is simple: to fill in the gap in the

scholarships offered to prospective students.

There are scholarships offered for almost any

demographic imaginable. In a country that

proclaims equality for all, we provide monetary

aid to those that have found the scholarship

application process difficult because they do not

fit into certain categories or any ethnic

group. Our goal: To financially assist talented

young Americans seeking higher education who lack

opportunities in similar organizations that are

based upon race or gender. (70)

While there is nothing inherently wrong with these

actions, the ideology that underpins them is dangerous,

based on fallacies and is a form of scapegoating that

ignores the actual issues within the American university

system. In the words of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the

lone dissenter to in sending the Fisher case back to the

Fifth Circuit and thus keeping alive the potential for

affirmative action to be dismantled, “Only an ostrich could

regard the supposedly neutral alternatives [proposed by

Fisher’s lawyers] as race unconscious” and this also speaks

to the rationale behind the movements of Blum, Bohnannon and

others. Justice Ginsburg continues in her four page dissent,

“I have several times explained why government actors,

including state universities, need not be blind to the

lingering effects of ‘an overtly discriminatory past’ and

the legacy of ‘centuries of law-sanctioned inequality’”

(71).

In early 2013, the New York Times released a report

addressing the rise of the importance of referrals in non-

entry level hiring positions. (72) They stated that many

firms were beginning to approach the 50 percent mark in

hiring based on employee referrals. With this being the

case, it sets up a systemic roadblock for those attempting

to enter the workforce in such institutions and many worry

that this has negative ramifications for minorities

attempting to enter a previously white- and male-dominated

workspace. When taking into account America’s “overtly

discriminatory past” and the fact that most whites, who

occupy the majority of these positions, tend to associate

with others similar to themselves, it becomes clear how such

a system may easily unintentionally tilt the scales in favor

of certain groups when diversity is not actively addressed

simply based on the internal logic of the system itself.

Furthermore, “[p]eople tend to recommend people much like

themselves, economists say, a phenomenon known as

assortative matching. Mr. Topa’s study for the Federal

Reserve Bank of New York found that 63.5 percent of

employees recommended candidates of the same sex, while 71.5

percent favored the same race or ethnicity.” (73). Similar

systemic operations hold true in the realm of higher

education in the sense that the functioning of the system

causes unintended disparities due to historical

prerequisites that work to the benefit of whites and the

detriment of people of color.

Only a few examples are necessary to illustrate this

point, yet the documentation of this “legacy of law-

sanctioned discrimination” is immense and easily

researchable. As Tim Wise puts it in an essay addressing the

phenomena of perceived white victimhood in the university

system, “the claim that whites are being disadvantaged by

minority scholarships, even in theory, ignores the many ways

in which the nation’s educational system provides unfair

advantages to whites from beginning to end.” (74). For

example, schools with higher concentrations of students of

color are eleven to fifteen times more likely than schools

with a white majority to have high concentrations of student

poverty (75). White students are also twice as likely as

African-American and Latino students to be taught by the

most highly qualified teachers in terms of prior preparation

and subject certification and half as likely as their

colored counterparts to have the least qualified pedagogues

(76). Michael K. Brown pointed out that teacher

qualification is one of the most important factors in school

achievement and anyone who has gone through the pre-

university educational system can corroborate that claim

with their own experience (77).

While the list of educational disparities goes on, from

unequal offerings of AP and honors classes to vastly

disparate school funding, the historical sinews of a

racially discriminate America show how the outcome of a

university acceptance system that didn’t take these facts

into account would begin to become less and less easy to

enter for those who were not privileged by this history.

These dissimilarities between the experiences of secondary

education of white and black America show how the societal

discrepancies between potential white and black applicants

would greatly affect the outcome of an America void of such

programs. As is the case with most systems, the theory and

the practice vary greatly. “Special efforts to provide

access and opportunity to such persons should be made, not

because they are black, per se, or Latino, or whatever, but

because to be a person of color has meant something in this

country, and continues to mean something, in terms of one’s

access to full and equal opportunity.” (78)

Moreover, these anxiety-driven political moves-

embodied in the Fisher case and Bohnannon’s foundation- do

not even address the reality of the contemporary situation

of the university system in America. To begin, Colby

Bohnannon’s disdain for the scholarship aspect of the

umbrella term “affirmative action” gives a prime example of

the illogicality of the fear that programs that specifically

target and aid nonwhites. For one, the General Accounting

Office indicated that less than 4% of scholarship money in

the U.S. is represented by awards that consider race as a

factor at all and only 0.25% of undergraduate scholarship

money is restricted for people of color alone. (79).

In other words, whites are fully capable of

competing for and receiving any of the other

monies — roughly 99.75 percent of all scholarship

funds out there for college. Although this GAO

study was conducted in the mid-’90s, there is

little reason to expect that the numbers have

changed since then. If anything, increasing

backlash to affirmative action and fear of

lawsuits brought by conservatives against such

efforts would likely have further limited such

awards as a percentage of national scholarships.

(80)

Furthermore, only 3.5% of college students receive any

scholarship based even partly on race (81). So while 96.5%

of students do not receive scholarship monies for their

race, fallacies such as those held by Bohnannon are gaining

more and more traction in the white American discourse. Not

to mention the thousands of scholarships restricted to all

kinds of individuals, from those who have families involved

in agribusiness to students who speak Klingon from the

television series Star Trek. Nonetheless, the issue focused on

by such white activists is not these opportunity

restrictions nor systemic economic issues, but the highly

hyperbolic effect that race-based policies have on them as a

group.

Whereas Bohnannon’s call for white-specific

scholarships is rather benign, just symptomatic of the white

anxiety being analyzed here, the issues brought up in the

Fisher case have much more far-reaching effects for students

of color in the system of higher education. Thomas J.

Espenshade and Chang Y. Chung of Princeton University

released in the June, 2005 issue of the Social Science

Quarterly analyzing the effects of how preferences for

different types of applicants in elite universities. They

found that the affirmations of so-called “reverse

discrimination” in the college application system posited by

figures such as Fisher and Blum are grossly inflated and

would in fact have disastrous effects in the racial

demographics of universities. This is of course despite

Edward Blum’s claim that, “While racial diversity on college

campuses is beneficial, it cannot be attained by racial

discrimination” (82). Their publication states:

White plaintiffs in Gratz v. Bollinger (2003) and

Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) [and in Fisher v.

University of Texas several years after this study

was published] argued that they were unfairly

denied admission while some less quali ed fi

minority students were accepted. Our results show

that removing consideration of race would have a

minimal effect on white applicants to elite

universities. The number of accepted white

students would increase by 2.4 percent, and the

white acceptance rate would rise by just 0.5

percentage points—from 23.8 to 24.3 percent. Many

rejected white applicants may feel they would have

been accepted had it not been for af rmative fi

action, but such perceptions probably exaggerate

the reality (83)

While this study helps to dispel the irrational

contempt for the perceived disadvantageousness for whites

caused by affirmative action, it spends much of its ink

exploring the effects an undoing of affirmative action would

have on minorities in the collegiate world. One could infer

that such race-blind policies would have an injurious effect

on students of color simply based on the facts about

American secondary education with regard to race given

previously. Supporting this hypothesis, Espenshade and Chung

use data from the National Study of College Experience

(NSCE) and employ logistic regression analysis to create

simulations, which in turn allow them to analyze the impact

of a number of variables on the admissions process. They

found that when affirmative action was eliminated in their

simulation, the acceptance rate for African-Americans would

fall from 33.7% to a mere 12.2%, which is nearly a two-third

decrease. This means that the proportion of black students

in the admitted class would drop from 9% to 3.3%. Another

sharp decline was observed in this hypothetical situation

with regard to Hispanic students. The acceptance rate for

these students would be reduced by half, from 26.8% to

12.9%, meaning that their proportion in the accepted class

would be diminished from 7.9% to 3.8%. (84). They also noted

the accumulative consequences of these statistical shifts:

"If admitting such small numbers of qualified African-

American and Hispanic students reduced applications and the

yield from minority candidates in subsequent years, the

effect of eliminating affirmative action at elite

universities on the racial and ethnic composition of

enrolled students would be magnified beyond the results

presented here." (85)

Of course it could be argued that these statistics only

apply to elite colleges and that the effect in state

universities, such as the University of Texas where the

Abigail Fisher spotlight was focused, would not impact

minorities in such drastic ways and that race-blind policies

would not necessarily need to be implemented in elite

schools. Yet the scholars also studied the actual

repercussions of just such an implementation of race-blind

policies in regard to the University of California system.

The Board of Regents for the University of California voted

to eliminate affirmative action in the school system in

1995, with this policy taking effect in 1997 on a graduate

level and in 1998 on the undergraduate level. As they

phrased it:

The impacts are striking. Compared to the fall of

1996, the number of underrepresented minority

students admitted to the University of California-

Berkeley Boalt Hall Law School for the fall of

1997 dropped 66 percent from 162 to 55. African-

American applicants were particularly affected as

their admission numbers declined by 81 percent

from 75 to 14, but acceptances of Hispanics also

fell by 50 percent. None of the 14 admitted

African-American students chose to enroll. Of the

55 minority students admitted, only seven enrolled

in the fall of 1997, a falloff that had the effect

of reducing the underrepresented minority share in

the first year class to 5 percent in 1997 compared

with 26 percent in 1994. Similar impacts were felt

at law schools at UCLA and UC–Davis. (86)

The outcome of this colorblind protocol was also

witnessed at the undergraduate level. For example, UC

Berkeley experienced a drop in the number of

underrepresented minorities from 23% to 10% in the fall of

1998; just one year after the administrative decision was

passed. African-American admission experienced the biggest

decline, in which admission numbers fell by 66% in just the

span of a year in this university. Finally, Espenshade and

Chang cited yet another study which investigated potential

nationwide ramifications of such policies:

Using a nationwide sample from the National

Education Longitudinal Study, Long finds that

eliminating affirmative action at all colleges and

universities would reduce the underrepresented

minority share of students accepted from 16.1 to

15.5 percent across all four-year institutions and

from 10.6 to 7.8 percent at the highest quality 10

percent of schools (87 & 88)

Hence, it seems that the title of an April, 2014 article in

the American Prospect by Edmund Zagorin indeed rings some

truth: “Race-Blind Admissions Are Affirmative Action for

Whites.” (89). So between delving into the sociological

factors that have historically disadvantaged and continue to

disadvantage people of color in the educational system and

the statistical realities and hypotheticals, we have

effectively broken down the exaggerated reality presented by

people like Blum, Fisher and others.

With scarcity among seats in universities being a

persistent issue coupled with rising costs of tuition and an

increase of programs that have worked to aid racially

oppressed groups in the last half-century, it is only

natural that students in white America would have such

grievances. And this only accounts for grievances voiced

concerning the university system. So while the grievances

are in themselves justified, the rationale behind them and

the place where the blame is being projected are not. This

ideology of white victimization has been used in a way of

projecting grievances upon an “other” in order to either

rationalize situations or to actively scapegoat. This is a

wont occurrence in the U.S., such as with the issue of a

lack of American jobs, wherein brown folks from south of the

border are the ones most actively blamed in the mainstream

national discourse rather than other more fair-skinned

immigrants or, more importantly, the international

activities of the corporate sector. So while Rush Limbaugh

can equate Obama’s 2010 budget allocations to “forced

reparations” (90), regardless of the ridiculousness and

politicized nature of the statement, it does in fact speak

to the resentment of many in white America who feel the

system is failing them and do not know why. This environment

has thus enabled this white anxiety to proliferate and led

the Fisher case to have sparked a national debate of such a

magnitude.

Conclusion

As with any ideology, the post-racial ideology is one

that is vastly complex. Making statements about the way

people think is always a risky endeavor, for ideology is

inherently idiosyncratic seeing as it is comprised of the

working of many different and distinct individuals. However,

the discourse surrounding these two cases shined an

illuminating light on this amalgam of human behavior known

as the post-racial ideology. Despite the intricacies and

potential epistemological pitfalls that many in the social

sciences may befall in such cultural investigations, the

United States Judicial System provides a great platform of

analysis to undertake a vivisection of these ideologies. Its

necessary rigidity in terminology and legal ruling enable a

thorough examination of individual cases and the ideologies

(in these cases racially-centered ideologies) that led to

such judicial decisions. Moreover, it provides a stage in

which the national discourse- the important sociological

space where inquiries into countrywide ideologies can be

effectively carried out- can flourish due to the importance

such rulings have on the American people.

With the first case, State of Florida v. George Zimmerman, we

were able to see the discrepancies between the perceptions

of the state of affairs between whites and people of color

in the country. During the same summer, Fisher v. University of

Texas was finally decided in the wake of what is still an

ongoing debate about so-called “preferential treatment” of

minorities in job applications, university admissions and

other key sectors of American life. This in turn manifested

itself in the perpetuation of white anxiousness and the

widespread belief of “reverse-discrimination” or a perceived

turning of the proverbial tables between white and colored

America.

With America changing in such profound ways in recent

years- culturally, demographically, economically, etc.- it

has forced white Americans to increasingly view themselves

in racialized terms. With being presented with the reality

of what it means to be a person of color in America, such as

was the case with the Martin-Zimmerman issue, it is not

surprising that white America is reluctant to question the

notions of unconditional equality, meritocratic values and

‘Fukuyamaist’ progress that have been held so dear for so

long. With traditionally “black” or “Latino” cultural

elements entering the mainstream and the projections of an

increased slice of the American population pie looking as if

it will be occupied by non-white individuals, whites have

become increasingly forced to feel the concern of becoming

the dreaded “minority”. With economic recession causing many

whites to occupy a space of economic insecurity and

disenfranchisement previously occupied primarily by colored

faces, whites have more and more to view themselves in

racialized terms; a luxury previously afforded to them by

Flagg’s “transparency effect” and McIntosh’s “white

privilege”. Perhaps the dissection of the post-racial

ideology in white America conducted in the previous pages

can best be summarized with a quote from the film “The

Matrix” in which Neo asks Morpheus, “Why do my eyes hurt?”

after removing his glasses. Morpheus simply responds,

“Because you’ve never used them before.” (91)

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of Orenthal James Simpson. N.p., 2000. Web.20. "Raw: 911 Call Zimmerman Made to Sanford Police

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24. "Statutes & Constitution :View Statutes : Online Sunshine." Statutes & Constitution :View Statutes : Online Sunshine. N.p., 25 June 2014. Web. <http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0776/Sections/0776.013.html>.

25. Smiley, Tavis. "'This Week' Panel: Zimmerman Verdict." ABC News. ABC News Network, 17 July 2013. Web. <http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/week-panel-george-zimmerman-verdict-trayvon-martin-case-19662008>.

26. Fung, Katherine. "Geraldo Rivera: Trayvon Martin's 'Hoodie Is As Much Responsible For [His] Death As George Zimmerman' (VIDEO)." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 23 Mar. 2012. Web. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/23/geraldo-rivera-trayvon-martin-hoodie_n_1375080.html>.

27. Goldberg, Michelle. "Why Conservatives Are Smearing Trayvon Martin’s Reputation." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 27 Mar. 2012. Web. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/26/why-conservatives-are-smearing-trayvon-martin-s-reputation.html>.

28. Eakin, Britain. "George Zimmerman Case Brings Race, Discrimination in U.S. to Forefront." Al Arabiya News, 19 July 2013. Web. <http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/analysis/2013/07/19/George-Zimmerman-case-brings-race-discrimination-in-U-S-to-forefront.html>

29. Ibid.30. "Big Racial Divide over Zimmerman Verdict." Pew Research Center

for the People and the Press RSS. N.p., 22 July 2013. Web. <http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/22/big-racial-divide-over-zimmerman-verdict/>

31. Ibid.32. Ibid.33. Ibid.34. Seitz-Wald, Alex. "Fox News Contributor Thinks ‘The Blacks’

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36. Ferrara, Peter. "Stand Your Ground, Post-Trayvon Martin America, You're Not Racist." Forbes Magazine, 21 July 2013. Web. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/07/21/stand-your-ground-post-trayvon-martin-america-youre-not-racist/2/>.

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39. Chomsky, Noam, and David Barsamian. The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many. Berkeley, CA: Odonian, 1993. Print.

40. R., Lawrence Charles. The Id, the Ego, and Equal Protection: Reckoning With Unconscious Racism. San Francisco, CA: Leland Stanford Junior U, 1987. Print.

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47. Ibid.48. Ibid.49. Ibid.50. Howe, Amy. "Finally! The Fisher Decision in Plain English."

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52. Wise, Tim. "A Bad Year for White Whine: College Scholarshipsand the Cult of Caucasian Victimhood." N.p., 6 Mar. 2011. Web. <http://www.timwise.org/2011/03/a-bad-year-for-white-whine-college-scholarships-and-the-cult-of-caucasian-victimhood/>.

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57. Ibid.58. Cohan, Darcy. "Racial Attitudes in the United States."

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73. Ibid.74. Wise, Tim. "A Bad Year for White Whine: College Scholarships

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78. http://www.timwise.org/2011/03/a-bad-year-for-white-whine-college-scholarships-and-the-cult-of-caucasian-victimhood/

79. U.S. General Accounting Office, 1994. “Information on Minority Targeted Scholarships,” B251634. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, January.

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81.  Stephen L. Carter, “Color-Blind and Color-Active,” 1992. The Recorder. January 3.

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