ABSTRACT
Many white, middle-class Americans consider affirmative action as a policy to be unfair because it is alleged to rely on racially based preferences (Dovidio et al. 1989; Drake and Holsworth 1996; Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, and Krysan 1997). Yet studies demonstrate that this same group of 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 (Massey and Denton 1993; Tomaskovic-Devey 1993; Wilson 1997). The gap between their ideals and their day-to-day practices uncovers a fault line in American culture when it comes to matters of race. Middle-class 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. What is it that
enables the recipients of white privilege to deny the role they play in reproducing racial inequality? In other words, how is whiteness as a structural feature of inequality constituted and reconstituted in daily life?
