n itself be evidence, if additional evidence is needed, of the pervasive and enduring pattern of racial bias in American society. Persons of color remain dramatically underrepresented in the upper strata of education, income, and influence, but there is a pervasive fear among whites, a fear which the political system reflects and amplifies, that somewhere, some uppity black person is getting ahead through advantage of a racial "preference."
A further illustration is the automatic way in which we respond to words like "race," "minority," and "preference," by thinking in terms of "black." This is a sign of the mentality of racial bias, shared even by those not overtly biased. We know, on both sides of the divide, whom "we" and "they" are. Even the law measures the discriminatory experience of other groups in society by implicit comparisons to blacks as the reference point, the target of the most intense bigotry (Fiss, 1975): 147).
Professor Derrick Bell addresses the real status of blacks in contemporary American society in And We Are Not Saved (1987: 45ff). It is true that one particular form of discrimination no longer oppresses blacks, that of positive bias compelled by law (e.g., Jim Crow laws). It is also true that a few black individuals have reached prominent or leadership positions in a wide range of endeavors. The popular Bill Cosby television show was prime time's symbol for the presence of a small class of successful blacks. And because he and they prove that blacks can make it, they prove in white eyes that "discrimination" no longer exists. But the fact rema
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