Sociology professor's research, books, life confront racism

BY JOAN TUPPONCE

Eileen O’Brien holds two of the three books she has written on racism. A third—about Latinos and Asians—will be out in June.

Eileen O'Brien, assistant professor of sociology, emphasizes two main points in her classes on race: Racism is far from over, and it's far more complex than "the bad racist guys versus the good rest of us."

"I [tell students] that this thing has a history that far predates them; therefore, it probably is going to have a shelf-life well beyond them," O'Brien says. "They can't expect to fix all of it, but to throw their hands up and say there's nothing they can do about it is also problematic. I hope to present them with ways they can confront racism in their everyday lives, even if it's just raising awareness."

O'Brien has her own history with the issue. The dedication in her first book, Whites Confront Racism—"To everyone in my hometown of Williamsburg, Va., who gave me more of an education about racism than any academic degree ever could"—acknowledges the early beginnings of her quest for knowledge.

At 15, she was a straight-A student. "I was a goody two shoes," she says. "I hadn't really dated that much." Her first boyfriend was a black student. "I had an open mind," she says. "I was raised with the idea that everybody is the same."

When O'Brien's parents forbade the relationship, she rebelled, severing herself from adult guidance. "I look back on that now as tragic for me," she says. "Racism cut me from my relationships."

In college, O'Brien came to realize that blacks and whites live in separate worlds, and she felt she had a moral obligation to share this new awareness with others. "I wanted to be that bridge between those worlds," she says.

Now, in her classes and books, she points out that racism needs to be distinguished from prejudice. "Racism is more macro, while prejudice is more individual. Racism is a system that confers advantages to the dominant group," she explains, using a moving walkway as a symbol for society's racist beliefs. "If you are standing on the walkway, you are part of the system of racism. Anti-racism is when people walk against the current."

O'Brien also works outside the classroom to educate people about racism. Last year, she led a workshop for the Richmond Peace Education Center. "A special focus of the workshop was on the ways that simply being white in our society confers certain advantages and benefits that often go unacknowledged, and are in fact, taken for granted by many," explains Adria Scharf, the center's executive director. "The workshop laid the groundwork of understanding that we built on to start a new initiative focused on dialogue and action for racial justice."

Back on campus, students get excited about the topic when they discuss how racism has influenced their own lives, their family's lives and their surroundings. "Those are the kinds of discussions that really have a lasting impact on people," O'Brien says.

O'Brien believes that people are often afraid to talk about racism for fear of being labeled a racist. "Racism is a dangerous word because people don't understand the definition," she says. "There's a lot of cultural baggage. If you have to worry that you might be accused of being a racist, then obviously racism is still a part of our culture."

Racism, according to O'Brien, is just as prevalent today as it was in the past. "It's in a less visible form," she observes. "It depends on where you are. In middle-class America, it's more insidious. Some folks call that color-blind racism."

This year's presidential race, a recent topic in O'Brien's class, is a study in attitudes toward race and gender. The question "How can Republicans attack Barack Obama without appearing to be racist?" raises red flags, according to O'Brien.

"Important to that question is the notion that somehow a black or other nonwhite person entering a previously all-white setting brings race into an otherwise non-racial terrain," she says. "This assumption could not be further from the truth. Republicans or anyone else could be racist in the comments that they make to each other, even without blacks present. It's curious that people would think they have to be on their toes more about how they talk about race just because Obama is in the room."

Since 2001, when Whites Confront Racism was released, O'Brien has authored two additional books on the topic: White Men on Race in 2003 and The Racial Middle, which will be released in June. The latest book, which tells the story of other racial groups in the United States, mainly Latinos and Asians, was prompted by the "middle experience" O'Brien found when writing White Men on Race.

"The elite white men had plenty of disparaging things to say about blacks, but only good things to say about Latinos and Asians," she says. "I wanted to investigate this idea that Asians and Latinos might eventually 'become white'—basically are more accepted than blacks. I wanted to look into the middle experience a bit more, and I found there really is a middle experience, and I think the issues of the racial middle will become more significant."

Woody Doane, professor of sociology and chair of the department of social sciences at the University of Hartford, reviewed O'Brien's new book. "It makes a significant contribution on the issue of race," he says. "Eileen has a real gift for asking questions that others haven't asked on a topic. In this case, 'What do Asian-Americans and Latinos think about race?' This new book really addresses a tremendous gap in the literature."

O'Brien is very knowledgeable about the subject, he adds. "She is one of the people in the field who has made a mark and will continue to make a mark over the next couple of decades. I expect she will keep asking the unasked question and turning that into important scholarship."