Bleaching out the color line?

Abstract

Bonilla-Silva [Skin Deep: How Race and Color Matter in the “Color-Blind” Era, IRRPP and University of Illinois Press, Chicago and Urbana-Chapaign, IL, 2004, pp. 224–239] argues that “the U.S. is developing a tri-racial system with “Whites” at the top, an intermediary group of “honorary Whites,” and a non-White group or the “collective Black” at the bottom. His thesis provides a new, provocative explanation of how race will operate in 21st Century America. Using data from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, this article provides an analysis of propositions derived from three models of race as they relate to stratification outcomes: the “binary” (Black/White) model of race, Bonilla-Silva’s tripartite model of race, and a multi-ethnic model of race and ethnicity. The analysis points out that Whites and Blacks differ significantly on several stratification outcomes (e.g., education, occupational prestige, earnings, and family income), irrespective of the model of race that is used. The binary, Black/White model of race is still important in identifying baseline differences in who gets what. The results of the analysis further suggest that Bonilla-Silva’s tripartite model of race makes some apparent improvements on the binary model. In particular, the bivariate results were fully consistent with Bonilla-Silva’s tripartite model. Nevertheless, there are other stratification outcomes that do not strictly conform to the expectations of the tripartite model. The implications of these findings are examined briefly.