The New Pittsburgh Courier ran a story about sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s recent lecture in which he discussed how presidential candidate Barack Obama is “not the symbol many perceive him to be.” The story ran under the headline “Sociologist Says Obama is Raceless.”

The Courier reports:

“Symbols work in many directions,” said Bonilla-Silva, a sociology professor at Duke University. “(Obama’s) going to be a truncated symbol; both segments happy, but for totally different reasons—we have to understand what does it mean for Black communities and White communities.”
…
He discussed “new-racism,” meaning “the post-civil rights racial system of subtle, institutionalized, and apparently non-racial practices that maintains White supremacy and its accompanying racial ideology of color-blind racism.” Instead of seeing Obama as the end of this racism, Bonilla-Silva said his campaign success has been based largely on his ability to appear raceless. Although he admitted Obama could be a good role model, Bonilla-Silva said it is more important for him to create “real change.” — Read more. 

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva was also a contributing writer to Contexts Magazine‘s feature on the “Social Significance of Barack Obama.” Take a look at Bonilla-Silva’s commentary, here.