Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coates is a National Book Award-winning author who has written extensively on the subject of race. His work is quoted several times in the book, primarily for the purpose of fostering the idea that it is ridiculous for a nature literally built on the back of white supremacy to pretend that racism is system and pervasive.
Joe Feagin
Feagin is a sociologist responsible for coining the term “white racial frame.” This is a term which refers to the manner in which white people reinforce the transmission of ideas situating themselves as members of a superior race in ways that may not be typically viewed as traditionally racist.
Michael Oher
Michael Oher is young African-American football player whose story is told in the Oscar-winning film The Blind Side. While intended to be a film espousing anti-racist ideology, the author deconstructs it to reveal that the treatment of Oher in the film is consistently one which makes him a victim of the racist trope of what is today known as the “white savior” complex that owes a debt to the older terminology “white man’s burden.”
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Bonilla-Silva is another sociologist, famous for investigating the defining paradox of racism in modern, post-Civil Rights Movement America. Despite the fact most people claim not to be a racist themselves or even to know anyone they consider a racist, racism is still rampant in America. Bonilla-Silvas answer to this paradox lies in the concept of color-blind racism in which racism is treated as though it doesn’t exist merely by virtue of pretending that race itself is no longer an issue.
