Color-Blind Racism in Post-Obama America: An Examination of Attitudes Toward Hurricane Katrina Evacuees in Houston, Texas

The issue of racism in America continues to be an important topic, particularly in reference to whether and to what extent it still exists and continues to impact the life chances of racial and ethnic minorities. This article examines Bonilla-Silva’s theory of color-blind racism within the context of attitudes of respondents in Harris County, Texas, toward the evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. Data from the 2006 and 2010 Houston Area Surveys are used to address whether color-blind racism frames impact citizen attitudes toward the evacuees and whether that impact differs pre- and post-Obama’s presidential election. The logistic and ordinal regression analyses reveal support for the impact of color-blind racism frames, particularly that of cultural racism, on attitudes toward the evacuees. Additionally, that impact, although stronger in the 2006 data, persists in 2010. Limitations and implications for future research are also discussed.