The Chicago school of sociology is so named because it was an academic movement that started at the University of Chicago. Led by the pioneering sociologist Robert E. Park, the Chicago school of sociology opened up sociological ways of studying race and racism and fought against the theory that race is biological.

The authors argue that “colorblindness” has become the dominant way of thinking about race in the 21st-century United States. According to the theory of colorblindness, most if not all major problems with racism have been addressed through political reforms; it is therefore better to treat race as something that is no longer a major problem that requires further reforms to address but is something that is an individual problem or struggle.

This is one of the three approaches to understanding race in the history of the United States examined by the authors. Ethnicity theory holds that race is based on the existence of ethnic groups that are each culturally distinct. Ethnicity theory proposed that, in the United States, racism could be combatted through the assimilation of ethnic groups into the dominant culture.