A Colorblind Society?
The book commences with a metaphor which it then proceeds to systematically expose as just that and nothing more: a flighty fantasy of an imaginative term which seems like what it is supposed to mean, but in fact is nothing at all like it. It is a comparison that cannot stand to scrutiny. American, the authors set about proving, is far from the metaphorical “colorblind society” offering equal opportunities for everyone while guaranteeing success to no one.
Anti-Busing Movement as "Parental Involvement"
The anti-busing movement has been traditionally characterized as a political effort to control desegregation of schools by using buses to end unfair and inequitable education practices. The authors insist that it must be properly viewed through a metaphorical framework rather than a simple ideological one. Those opposed to busing and in support of continued segregation sought to counter the distinctly racist overtones of their beliefs creating metaphorical foundation in which anti-busing support became—through metaphor—an enactment of hands-on parental involvement in an effort to maintain control of a community by the people who actually lived there.
"Amateur Biology"
Racism springs from learned racial beliefs. And racial beliefs are in turn shaped and formed by ideological constructs. One of those constructs is that because people “look” different from each other based on the genetics of “racial features” then by extension they can be expected to act in different ways according to these genetics. Racism thus lives and breathes based on the metaphorical notion of being “an amateur biology” in which learned racial beliefs—no matter how scientifically invalid—are somehow ideologically sound. Conditioning makes this metaphorical “amateur biology” thus removed from “racism” because it is belief based on the apparently observable science of genetics.But genetics is not race; a fact that billions still have trouble wrapping their head around.
"The Teflon President"
To describe someone as being made of “Teflon” is to engage in metaphor the literal properties of that material: nothing sticks to it and instead just easily slides off. The authors take note of the widespread metaphorical application of being a “Teflon President” to Ronald Reagan. Reagan was able to not just escape unscathed from the various scandals of his administration, but even today he remains untouched by what history has proven to be dangerously misguided policies and agendas; most notably the ludicrous “trickle down” theory of economics. The authors engage the metaphor of nothing bad sticking to Reagan because he was so personally likable to his policies on race, including how his trust in “voodoo economics” savaged the social welfare net which African-Americans depended upon just to survive the other distinctly unfair economic ideology at play.
"Children of God"
The question boils down to “what is race?” Nobody really knows—not even geneticists—but the founders of a New World that would eventually become the United States where racial formation has been a central and continuing problem knew. Or, at least, fervently believed they knew: race is a division between the “Children of God” and everybody else. Or, to put it more simply: those descended from white Europeans and those who are not.
