Bad Faith and the Culture War

This book exposes how colorblind ideology operates as a persuasive veneer of neutrality that quietly entrenches racial inequality.
Examining legal originalism, cultural invocations of "Western tradition," and reactionary backlash to Critical Race Theory and antiracist activism, Amien Kacou demonstrates how appeals to objectivity and heritage conceal profoundly political commitments. Each chapter analyzes a distinct mode of colorblind rhetoric-projective, equivocal, hysterical, and obsessive-to show how these patterns distort antiracist efforts and stabilize existing racial hierarchies. Taken together, the book reveals colorblindness not as a benign ideal but as a deliberate, ongoing strategy to resist meaningful racial justice.