This book makes use of in-depth interviews with the residents most active in shaping the
racially diverse urban communities in which they live. As most of them are white and
progressive, it provides a unique view into the particular ways that color-blind ideologies
work among liberals, particularly those who encounter racial diversity regularly. It reveals not
just the pervasiveness of color-blind ideology and coded race talk among these residents,
but also the difficulty they encounter when they try to speak or work outside of the rubric of …

How do today's normative tools for understanding and discussing race and racism constrain
and enable people's lived experiences of diversity? That is the question that Meghan Burke
set out to answer while a graduate student in Chicago. Burke became intrigued with how
whites express ''racial ambivalence''—a simultaneous and even contradictory commitment to
both ''colorblind''beliefs in which race is thought not to matter, alongside a commitment to
racial diversity and an appreciation for racial justice. From 2007 to 2008, Burke examined …