Ethical Issues In Contractors Tendering Practices Construction Essay

Ethical Issues In Contractors Tendering Practices Construction Essay Ethics examine the morality of human conduct; it studies the basic principles of moral behaviour and is concern with the right or wrong of human behaviour. Every rational human being has an idea of what it is for something to be right or wrong, although sometimes it is difficult to evaluate what is wrong or right depending on the circumstance of such action (Etim, 1999). Business ethics is therefore a collection of moral principles or a set of values dealing with what is right or wrong, good or bad in business transactions. Such sets of values are being shared within the business community as well as the society as a whole. Moral ideas are considered to be inappropriate for everyday business dealings and some actions are disregarded due to the strong desire to make profit. Some have argued that ethics and business do not mix, and that the two are in direct conflict with each other. In fact, it has been said that companies that are truly ethical are going out of existence. Construction contracts can be obtained by negotiation or by competitive tendering (Shash, 1993; Ashworth, 2001). In competitive tendering, an owner invites a selected number of contractors to compete for the project. This method of tendering is considered as the most common means by which building and engineering contracting firms obtain works, and the dominant mechanism for allocating construction contracts (Ward, 1979; Yusif and Odeyinka, 2000; Ashworth, 2001; Hiyassat, 2001; Harris and McCaffer, 2001; Shen et al, 2004). The business of tendering for construction contracts has a large ethical component. Ethical principles in tendering are formally prescribed in the codes of conduct related to tendering process. The codes are designed to delegate responsibilities to both competing contractors and the client and to minimize the potentials for unethical practices. This work intends to examine cover pricing, collusive tendering and rate loading among other unethical practices which construction contractors sometimes engage in during tendering. Cover pricing in construction tendering Fu, Drew and Lo (2004) observe that contractors tendering behaviour is subject to their winning intent. It is however known that winning may not be the only objective in tendering. Although the tendering codes stipulates that tenderers shall only bid where they intend to carry out the work if successful, some contractors for some reasons sometime decide to submit tenders based on cover-price. Cover prices are tender prices which have been provided at rates specifically designed to lose the tender but which may appear to be competitive. Despite attempts to prevent this practice, several instances of cover pricing sometimes called non-serious tenders have been reported. When a contractor with a reasonable workload receives a set of tender documents from a reputable client and consulting organizations, the contractor has to decide what to do: first whether to do nothing, to return the tender documents or to submit a tender. A tender may be submitted in one of three ways: by obtaining a cover price, by preparing a tender based on accurate estimate, and by preparing a tender based on approximate estimate. The option to do nothing is not considered suitable due to the potential harm such a course of action might cause to the reputation of the contractor with the client, consultants and their business contacts. Also the option of returning the tender documents may be perceived by the contractor as unsatisfactory because it might mean exclusion from future tender list, although this should not be the case according to the code of procedure for tendering. Some reasons for the issuing of cover price by contractors to include: little interest in the contract; lack of resources to competently complete the work; shortage of time to compile tender; desire to remain considered for future contracts; and little chance of winning due to the large number competing contractors for the same contract. It is reported in Skitmore and Runeson (1999) that clients often give the perception that a failure to tender will prejudice a contracting firm in the future tendering exercise, and the consequence of this is the so called cover price which cannot easily be distinguished from a genuine competitive tender. Also, Runeson (1988) remarks that some tenders are based on cover prices not intended to win the contract and therefore above the expected price, and submitted to recover deposit moneys or to keep faith with the client or consultants. However, Lowe and Parvar (2004) provide a different perspective to cover pricing. They submit that tendering options available to a contractor are simply acceptance or rejection of the tendering opportunity, although, rejection does not mean that the contractor does not submit a tender. Unsatisfactory past experience with a particular client or consultants regarding personality or payment, high cost of tendering and inadequate information often resulted in inflation of the tender price (cover price) rather than a refusal to tender. Cover price can ruin the competitiveness of a tendering process and can also lead to collusion among tendering contractors. However, despite its unethical nature and illegality in some countries, there are some arguments in its favour. The shortage of time to compile a bona fide tender could compel a contractor to submit tenders based on cover price. The recognition of this fact may have prompted the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS) in its Code of Procedure for Competitive Tender to state that: time allowed for completion of tender should relate to the scope of project. Adequate tendering time allows tenderers to obtain competitive quotations and thus, ensure the return of most competitive prices with least mistakes (Clause 4.2.1) Lowe and Parvar (2004) believe that only few contractors will actually decline an invitation to tender. However, it appears that contractors react differently to the perceived fear that the option of returning tender documents might exclude them from clientsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ future tender process The report of a survey of some Nigerian building contractors indicate that when they receive a set of tender documents at a time their firms have a reasonable workload, they return the tender documents to the clients or their representatives with an apology for their firmsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ inability to tender. Only a few contractors admit to engaging in the practice of cover pricing. Contractors who admit to using cover pricing in tendering reveal that their action is mostly driven by little or no interest in the contract under consideration and the desire to remain considered for future contracts and tendering process. Some contractors cited other reasons such as the personality of the cl ient, risk and unpredictability of the construction period as well as heavy workload as some reasons why cover pricing may be an option for their firms. Whether or not a cover price is provided with good intention, the fact remains that it results in lessening real competition of tenders. Collusion in Tendering Chen et al (2005) submit that one purpose of the standard tendering procedures is to reduce potential for collusion and manipulation of pricing. According to Ray et al (1999), collusion is a method of pricing control by contractors to substantially lessen competition. Collusive tendering occurs where several contractors have been invited to tender and the contractors agree among themselves either not to tender, or to tender in such a manner as not to be competitive with the other contractors. It has the effect of substantially lessening competition. The main reasons for this practice among contractors are that it provides: an even distribution of construction work for all the contractors involved a means of entering what is an apparently bona fide tender a means for discussion and agreement over illicit profit making such as amounts for cover price, and unsuccessful tendering fee. The practice, or possibilities for the practice of collusion is a factor among several other issues related to ethical tendering, and it is contrary to the ideals of competition. It only benefits those parties to the agreement at the expense of those outside, including clients and other contractors. Sheldon cited in Ray et al (1999), while examining collusion in the UK, holds that collusion agreement are seen as an attractive means of maintaining a steady flow of work and achieving higher, risk-adjusted, discounted profit. The tender codes of some countries clearly prohibit unethical practices such as collusion on tenders, inflation of prices to compensate unsuccessful tenderers or any such secret arrangements. The very fact that tendering contractors communicate with each other can be taken to be a form of collusive behaviour under competitive tendering process. Though, little evidence of collusive tendering seems to be available in Nigeria construction industry, it is pertinent for industry practitioners and clients to be aware of the possibility of such unethical practice. Rate loading Usually, a construction tender is priced in such a way that the prices of each item comprise the cost of that item plus a uniform percentage allowed as profit and overheads. This is not always the case. Contractors may mark up the bill items by different percentages to create some element of rate-loading in order to create a favourable cash flow. Two aspects of rate loading are front-end loading and claims loading. Construction contracts only become self-financing towards the completion of the project. Therefore contractors are required to engage a considerable amount of their own capital in the execution of the work, at least in the early stage. In an attempt to minimize the involvement of their capital and make the project self-financing at an early stage, they resort to price manipulations. Items which the contractor expects to be executed early in the project have prices which contain a disproportionately large content of overheads and profits and items to be executed in the later stage of the project have their prices reduced accordingly to maintain competitiveness (Fellows et al, 2002). This pricing strategy in construction tenders is referred to as front-end loading. Due to the time-value of money, the situation further benefit contractors but place a cash flow burden and greater risk on clients. There is also the practice of claims loading where contractors insert higher profit margin into unit rates related to those work items which they expect to be increased through variation orders during the execution of the contract (Xu and Tiong, 2002). Conclusion Unethical tendering practices such as cover pricing, collusive tendering and rate loading have the potential of reducing real competition and eroding the benefits of competitive tendering. They can also place enormous financial burden on client. Construction consultants therefore have a duty to carefully examine tenders for construction contracts to identify any such practice and possibly caution or sanction contractors who may have engage in these practices.

The Pros and Cons of Abortion Essay -- Abortion Essays

The topic of abortion is one of the most controversial issues in today’s society. Thousands of abortions take place every single day, and yet public opinion remains at a standstill as to whether or not abortion is ethical or not. According to a poll in 2013, fifty-four percent of the American public believes that the practice of abortion should be legal in all or most cases (â€Å"Public Opinion on Abortion†) Abortion has been defined as â€Å"the act of removing a human embryo or fetus from the uterus of a pregnant woman prior to the completion of the full term of pregnancy†(Rich, Wagner, and Geraldine). There are very strong opinions for and against this issue, but no one can deny the vast gray area of abortion. A person’s stance on the situation is often determined by how he views the fetus: a part of the mother’s body or as a human being. Abortion continues to be a moral issue because people have various views on the rights of the fetus and mo ther, the circumstances of the pregnancy, and their own religious convictions concerning the issue. In the most recent study, 1.21 million abortions took place in the United States in the year 2008 (â€Å"About Abortion†). According to a study performed by the Guttmacher Institue, twenty-one percent of all pregnancies in the United States end in abortions (â€Å"Induced Abortion†). Fifty percent of pregnancies in the United States are unplanned (â€Å"Induced Abortion†). Of those unplanned pregnancies, four out of ten result in abortions (â€Å"Induced Abortion†). When analyzing the statistics of women who receive abortions, one must become aware that outside circumstances might contribute to a woman’s decision to have an abortion. For instance, women who are one hundred percent below the federal poverty level ac... ...rtion Federation: History of Abortion. National Abortion Federation, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014. "Public Opinion on Abortion." Public Opinion on Abortion. Pew Research Center, July 2013. Web. 17 Mar. 2014. Rich, Alex K. Wagner, Geraldine. "Abortion: An Overview." Points Of View: Abortion (2013): 1. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 16 Mar. 2014. Rubio, Marco. "Why Abortion is Bad for America." Human Life Review Winter 2012 2012: 19-26. ProQuest Health Management. Web. Voegeli Jr., William J. â€Å"A Critique of the Pro-Choice Argument† Review of Politics Vol. 43, no. 4 (Oct., 1981) , Pp. 560-571 Published by: Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame Du Lac on Behalf of Review of Politics Stable Print. "World Abortion Laws 2009 Fact Sheet." Center for Reproductive Rights. Center for Reproductive Rights, 2013. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.

Alcohol and Drinking - Treatments for Alcoholism Essay -- Exploratory

Treatments for Alcoholism      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Where can alcoholics receive help? â€Å"Hospitals, psychiatric agencies, public-welfare departments, and social agencies, among others are often reluctant to provide care and treatment for problem drinkers† (Plaut, 53). Although it is difficult to help these problems drinkers, many people will give all they can to help these problem drinkers. â€Å"The provision of treatment to problem drinkers is complicated because they differ from one to another in so many ways† (Plaut, 33). Many different factors vary within problem drinkers. â€Å"Not only do their drinking patterns vary greatly, but also their physical health, psychological condition, and economic circumstances† (Plaut, 34). Problem drinkers have problems associated with alcohol and also many other difficulties in life not necessarily dealing with alcohol. â€Å"Therefore, in planning treatment services for problem drinkers, or in developing a treatment plan for an individual, it is n ecessary to take into account more than just the drinking; in fact, it may even be impossible to deal with the drinking behavior unless other problems are also tackled† (Plaut, 34). Since drinking can be related to other problems it is important to take everything into account when helping a problem drinker.    It is difficult to help problem drinkers with their alcohol problems and also their personal problems. â€Å"The goals of treatment for most conditions are the relief of symptoms and the restoration of health† (Plaut, 34). A complicated situation to understand is â€Å"the fact that few, if, any, problem drinkers will be able to return to â€Å"normal† social drinking† (Plaut, 34). Thus, â€Å"the term â€Å"cure† is usually avoided. Abstinence, or at least altering the patients drink... ...n the other hand,    the major weaknesses are the failure to provide real treatment for substantial proportion of patients having at least an initial contact with the clinic; the lack of experimentation to develop new approaches for working with the less verbal, lower-class patient; the continouing isolation from other agencies- particularly general psychiatric services, mental hospitals, and medical detoxification facilities; and the lack of relationships with basic professional training institutions (Plaut, 79).    Outpatient care, such as alcoholism clinics can help problem drinkers with their problems and help them to live a new lifestyle.       Works Cited: Plaut, Thomas, Alcohol Problems 1967, Oxford University Press Mendelson, Jack and Mello, Nancy, Alcohol Use and Abuse in America 1985 by Bio-Behavioral Reaserch Corporation

Tale Of Two Cities :: History

Tale Of Two Cities â€Å"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,† Dickens writes in the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities as he paints a picture of life in England and France. The year is late 1775, and Jarvis Lorry travels from London to Paris on a secret mission for his employer, Tellson’s Bank. Joining him on his journey is Lucie Manette, a 17-year-old woman who is stunned to learn that her father, Doctor Alexandre Manette, is alive and has recently been released after having been secretly imprisoned in Paris for 18 years. When Mr. Lorry and Lucie arrive in Paris, they find the Doctor’s former servant, Ernest Defarge, caring for the him. Defarge now runs a wine-shop with his wife in the poverty-stricken quarter of Saint Antoine. Defarge takes Mr. Lorry and Lucie to the garret room where he is keeping Doctor Manette, warning them that the Doctor’s years in prison have greatly changed him. Thin and pale, Doctor Manette sits at a shoemaker’s bench intently making shoes. He barely responds to questions from Defarge and Mr. Lorry, but when Lucie approaches him, he remembers his wife and begins to weep. Lucie comforts him, and that night Mr. Lorry and Lucie take him to England. Five years later, the porter for Tellson’s Bank, Jerry Cruncher, takes a message to Mr. Lorry who is at a courthouse. Mr. Lorry has been called as a witness for the trial of Charles Darnay, a Frenchman accused of being a spy for France and the United States. Also at the trial are Doctor Manette and Lucie, who are witnesses for the prosecution. Doctor Manette has fully recovered and has formed a close bond with his daughter. If found guilty of treason, Darnay will suffer a gruesome death, and the testimony of an acquaintance, John Barsad, and a former servant, Roger Cly, seems sure to result in a guilty verdict. Questions from Darnay’s attorney, Mr. Stryver, indicate that Cly and Barsad are the real spies, but the turning point in the trial occurs when Sydney Carton, Stryver’s assistant, points out that Carton and Darnay look alike enough to be doubles. This revelation throws into doubt a positive identification of Darnay as the person seen passing secrets, and the court acquits Darnay. After the trial, Darnay, Carton, and Stryver begin spending time at the Manette home, obviously attracted to Lucie’s beauty and kind nature.

The Craft Era

The first major era is now referred to as ‘craft’ manufacturing and service ‘shop’ delivery. This system was European in origin and linked to the way in which skills were developed: the apprentice–journeyman– master progression, which led to the creation of guilds of skilled people who sought to control the supply of their speciality, and the consolidation of skill within a subsector of society (as, for example, skills were passed on from father to son). This was noted for low-volume, high-variety products, where workers tended to be highly skilled and quality was built into the very process of operations. It was also appropriate for largely national markets, supplied internally with minimal imports and exports. Some craft manufacturing still remains today, in markets where exotic products and services can control demands through some unique feature or high level of desirability. For instance, some house building, furniture making, clock and watch making are still carried out by skilled craftsmen/women working on a single or few items of output at a time. While the processes and techniques used by these craftsmen/women are highly inefficient, the unique quality of their products commands a premium price, as illustrated by the secondhand value of products such as a Daniels pocket watch or a Morgan car. In the case of Morgan, however, it is a mistake to conclude that the passenger car industry might still be able to employ craft production. Morgan is unashamedly part of a sector that is closer to specialist toys than that concerned with personal transportation. It is also the end of a very thin tail, other parts of which (AC, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce, etc. have already been absorbed by volume producers, keen to operate in exotic niches for purposes that are closer to corporate advertising than to income generation. In the clothing industry, one significant sector of the industry – haute couture – is based on the craft production approach. In services, the craft era has also continued – perhaps even more so than in manufacturing. The slower pace of change within services derives from the extent to which customer processing operations can adopt new technologies and new systems. Only services that require little skill at the operating level (such as FMCG or petrol retailing) or processing large amounts of information (such as financial services) are significantly different now from what they were like even 30 years ago. Many services such as hotels, schools, hospitals, hairdressers, vehicle repair and transportation have changed very little, despite new technologies. The mass production era The second major era is known as mass production, although once again its principles were by no means restricted to manufacturing. This system grew in North America to accommodate three principal requirements of the developing giant: the need to export, the need to provide employment for a massive, largely unskilled workforce, and the need to establish itself as a world player, which meant infiltrating other regions with ideas clearly associated with the USA. In short, the Americans could not play by the European rules, so they reinvented the game: innovating by destroying the competitive position of craft production. The system was massively successful and changed the working and buying practices of the world in the first three decades of the twentieth century. In order to sell the standardized products made by standardized operations practices, mass production had to standardize the market requirements too. Fortunately, the market was immature and would do what it was told to do. Thus, mass production reversed the paradigm of craft production: volume was high with little variety. The marketing ploy (and the resultant manufacturing strategy) was exemplified by Henry Ford’s famous declaration, from now on, ‘a customer can have a car painted any colour he likes, as long as it is black! ’ In mass production, workers were typically unskilled. This was the era owing much to the contribution of F. W. Taylor’s Scientific Management, whereby workers had very narrowly defined jobs, involving repetitive tasks, and quality was left to ‘quality experts’ at the final stage of the overall process rather than being an integral part of operations at each step (Taylor, 1912). Taylor enabled firms, for the first time, to control costs, times and resources, rather than rely on skilled craftsmen and women to decide what was appropriate. Coupled with the developments made in mechanization and employee co-ordination during the European industrial revolutions, Taylor’s ideas provided an entirely different way of operating. In 1926, Encyclopaedia Britannica asked Henry Ford to christen his system and he called it mass production. He meant ‘mass’ in the sense of large volume production. Perhaps he did not see the other meaning of mass as ‘heavy and cumbersome’, which is what the system turned out to be (in terms of management systems and superstructure), once the market no longer bought what it was told. These principles originating in the 1920s were slow to be adopted in services, but by the 1970s, Ted Levitt, from Harvard Business School, was able to identify the ‘production-lining’ (Levitt, 1972) of service and the ‘industrialization’ (Levitt, 1976) of service. He cited fast food, the automatic teller machine (ATM) outside banks and supermarket retailing as examples of this. Schmenner (1986) coined the phrase ‘mass service’ to exemplify this type of service operation. More recently, the aspects of working life that are typical in this mass production context have been extended to life in general by Ritzer (1993), who refers to it as the McDonaldization of society. The shift from ‘craft’ marketing to marketing in the mass production age is clearly demarcated by the publication of Levitt’s (1960) article in the Harvard Business Review entitled ‘Marketing myopia’. In mass production, customers bought what was supplied; producers concentrated on keeping costs, and hence prices, down, and focused on selling to customers through aggressive advertising and sales forces. As organizations were product-led, operations management was relatively straightforward. Mass producing goods at the lowest cost meant minimizing component and product variety, large production runs and scientific management. The success of Ford made this view highly persuasive. In 1909, the Model T automobiles were sold for $950, but by 1916, following the introduction of the assembly line, it had fallen to $345, and three-quarters of the cars on American roads were built by Ford (Bryson, 1994). However, as Levitt (1960) pointed out, Ford was eventually outstripped by General Motors, who were not product-led but market-led. They gave customers what they wanted – choice, model updates, a range of colours (not just black! ). The symbol of this age is the brand. Originally (in the craft era) the brand was a mark on the product, often a signature – for example, on a painting – or symbol, signifying its ownership or origin. But in mass production the brand took on far more significance. It became the means by which one product (or service) could differentiate itself from a competitor’s product (or service). Procter & Gamble set up brand managers in 1931 to sell their different soap products. Later the brand also became a guarantee of product/service quality. Kemmons Wilson’s motivation in 1952 to open the first Holiday Inn hotel was his own disappointment with the ariable standards and sleaziness of the motels he stayed in whilst on a family holiday. The success of delivering a consistently standard level of service resulted in Wilson opening one hotel every two and half days in the mid-1950s. But by the 1990s, brands had come under threat. Markets are highly fragmented, the proliferation of niches makes target marketing more difficult, product and service life cycles are shortening, and product/service innovation is quicker than ever before; increasing customer sophistication has reduced the power of advertising. As a result, a more holistic view of operations management is required, as Crainer (1998) suggests: Companies must add value throughout every single process they are involved in and then translate this into better value for customers. This is because the modern era has brought profound changes in operations management and operations has to be at the heart of successful strategic thinking.

Airasia: Low Cost Carriers in Asia Pacific Essay

The use of information technology plays an important role in the strategic and operation management of airlines,and facilitates the successful airlines in the future. This paper will look at the awarding-winning low cost carriers (LCC) in Asia Pacific region – AirAsia, analyzes the current business environment, competitive advantages, value chain, current implementation of information technology, and the recommended future implementation of technology in customer relationship management (CRM) implementation to pursue competitive differentiation and profitability effectively in the future. COMPANY BACKGROUND AirAsia is one of the award winning and largest low fare airlines in the Asia expanding rapidly since 2001. With a fleet of 72 aircrafts, AirAsia flies to over 61 domestic and international destinations with 108 routes, and operates over 400 flights daily from hubs located in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Today, AirAsia has flown over 55 million guests across the region and continues to create more extensive route network through its associate companies. AirAsia believes in the no-frills, hassle-free, low fare business concept and feels that keeping costs low requires high efficiency in every part of the business. Through the corporate philosophy of â€Å"Now Everyone Can Fly†, AirAsia has sparked a revolution in air travel with more and more people around the region choosing AirAsia as their preferred choice of transport. AirAsia creates values through the following vision and mission: Vision Mission To be the largest low cost airline in Asia and serving the 3 billion people who are currently underserved with poor connectivity and high fares.To be the best company to work for whereby employees are treated as part of a big family Create a globally recognized ASEAN brand To attain the lowest cost so that everyone can fly with AirAsia Maintain the highest quality product, embracing technology to reduce cost and enhance service levels AirAsia makes the low fare model possible and create values through the implementation of the following key strategies: Strategies Safety First Partnering with the world’s most renowned maintenance providers and complying with the world airline operations. High Aircraft Utilization Implementing the regions fastest turnaround time at only 25 minutes, assuring lower costs and higher productivity. Low Fare, No Frills Providing guests with the choice of customizing services without compromising on quality and services. Streamline Operations Making sure that processes are as simple as possible. Lean Distribution System Offering a wide and innovative range of distribution channels to make booking and travelling easier. Point to Point Network Applying the point-to-point network keeps operation simple and lower costs.

Racism Without Racists

Either you’re with us or you’re Against Us Throughout Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s Racism without Racists, he attempts to describe a new form of racism that has emerged in today’s society. Bonilla-Silva refers to this new style of racism as, â€Å"color-blind racism. † During the Civil Rights Era and other previous time periods, racism was characterized by brutal physical, verbal, and emotional battering of minority races through actions such as Jim Crows Laws and other inhumane acts.However, unlike violent-forms of racism that were practiced years ago, this new-age â€Å"color-blind racism† incorporates subtle, institutional, and apparently nonracial practices (Silva 2010). In order to counter this new form of racism in society, Bonilla-Silva explains how civilians need to become actively involved in the fight against color-blind racism. In order to actively fight against color-blind racism Silva distinguishes the difference between a non-racist and an anti-racist and the certain implications and repercussions that accompany each label.Although the transformation from a non-racist culture, to a new, anti-racist community could produce outcomes that solve racism altogether, with this transformation comes a major moral dilemma: whether receiving white privileges outweighs the moral obligation of promoting equality in society. Through this interpretation of the text, I will try to rationalize what it means to be an anti-racist in today’s world and Bonilla-Silva’s call for social movement, along with the responsibilities and moral obligations that are incorporated with both.Bonilla-Silva suggests that a major change, from non-racists to anti-racists, needs to take place in order for color-blind racism to diminish in society. The distinction between a non-racist and an anti-racist is characterized by moral obligations and active participation in combating racism. Likewise, Bonilla-Silva suggests that being an anti- racist begins with understanding the institutional nature of racial matters and accepting this stand involves taking responsibility for your unwilling participation in these practices (Silva 2010).One who claims to be anti-racist actively takes responsibility for their unwilling participation in these practices and beginning a new life committed to the goal of achieving real racial equality (Silva 2010). Bonilla-Silva suggests that the conversion to an anti-racist will be challenging because in order to fulfill the role, one is struck with a moral dilemma; whether receiving white privileges outweighs the moral obligation of equality in society. According to Bonilla-Silva, a non-racist is a person who does not actively combat against societal norms regarding race and privileges.A non-racist is seen as a passive person who does not take a personal interest in combating the â€Å"new racism. † A major problem in the author’s eyes is that white Americans are considered the dominant race in today’s society, and most people who belong to this group are unaware of the privileges that they receive just by being white. For instance, many white Americans gain special privileges regarding education, job opportunities, social contexts, and more. While these privileges positively influence whites, they also help to reinforce the racial barrier that exists in the United States today.In Bonilla-Silva’s eyes, if the white society does not acknowledge the hidden privileges that they receive, and society continues to portray waves of color-blind racism, then societal norms related to color-blind racism will circulate within culture for ages. Bonilla-Silva states that a social movement needs to take place in order to debunk the â€Å"new racism† that America is facing today. To challenge societal norms, people need to refrain from using stereotypical white ideals to justify racial issues that arise throughout life. These interpretations are wid ely used by whites claiming to be non-racist.Bonilla-Silva suggests that many non-racists’ often resort to particular frames, or sets paths for interpreting information, as a way to justify certain racial situations that appear in life. These frames include abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and minimization of racism. Abstract liberalism incorporates concepts related to equal opportunity and choice in an abstruse way to justify racial experiences. For example, in regards to identifying people as â€Å"individuals† with â€Å"choices,† many non-racists fallback on the notion that people have the right of choosing to live in segregated neighborhoods.Next, the naturalization frame allows whites to blame certain racial matters as natural occurrences. Within this frame, many whites claim that the segregation that is seen today is natural and a result of people gravitating toward likeness (Silva 2010). According to Bonilla-Silva, this frame can be characterized by the saying, â€Å"that’s the way it is. † Another frame, or path, used by many non-racist whites is cultural racism. This frame relies on culturally based arguments to explain the current societal status of minorities. For instance, many hites resort to the claim that, â€Å"Mexican’s do not put enough emphasis on education, that is why they are behind in society† (Silva 2010). This particular frame allows for whites to highlight the mishaps and negative stereotypes about certain minority groups as their reason for not excelling in society, rather than the fact that minorities have been historically behind the dominant white race in aspects such as education, socio-economic status, occupations, and living conditions. The final frame that Bonilla-Silva uses to strengthen his argument is referred to as the minimization of racism.This frame suggests that discrimination is no longer a major factor that impacts the daily lives of minorities. T his concept incorporates the beliefs that racism is a thing of the past, and minorities are products of their own efforts and capabilities. These frames are used, in collaboration, to provide whites a way of expressing their beliefs about racial matters without coming off as demoralizing to minorities or flamboyantly racist. They also provide the justification that the racial inequality that occurs today is strictly logical, democratic, and non-racist.In Bonilla-Silva’s eyes, once society, as a whole, deviates from using these frames, then our culture can begin to make the shift from non-racists to anti-racists. According to the author, American society needs to make this transformation from non-racists to anti-racists for a multitude of reasons. First, he suggests that this movement needs to take place in order to educate the black population on the aspects of color-blind racism, because this new form of racism has tinted blacks recognition of its existence.He also suggests that the current group of anti-racists need to engage with all whites regardless of gender, socio-economic status, and educational status in order to gain a collectively larger group of followers. In turn, he suggests that power is in numbers, and with this power, anti-racists can begin challenging color-blind ideologies internally. Another reason for this movement that Bonilla-Silva points to is that fact that activists need to provide counter-arguments for the current color-blind frames that non-racist whites’ are using to justify racial scenarios.Likewise, we need to counter-balance common white arguments including equal opportunity and affirmative action. A major issue within today’s society is that many whites firmly believe that discrimination during past and current times does not significantly impact the lives of minority groups, when in turn; this subtle discrimination enhances the privileges of the white race, while severely limiting minority’s privile ges.Furthermore, â€Å"Bonilla-Silva claims that the most important strategy for combating â€Å"new racism† is to become militant with it† (Silva 2010). The strategies that Bonilla-Silva proposes above to combat color-blind racism are all grounded on specific and plausible reasons and explanations. Bonilla-Silva states that in order for this movement to be effective, it must defile the domination that color-blindness has over our whole country. Also he suggests that the overall demeanor of whites regarding race related issues needs to be exposed and challenged.Another motive for this anti-racist movement incorporates the idea that there should be a focus on white segregation and how this physical separation from minorities ultimately affects the white races’ values, beliefs, and emotions about race related matters. Finally, he states that in order for this movement to be successful in changing the cultural norm of color-blind racism in society, we need to chall enge a position that might seem impossible to overcome, however it is the only way to genuinely achieve racial equality in future times.After analyzing this book through readings, blogs, and class discussion, the moral dilemma of white privilege or equality has puzzled me for some time. Along with white privilege, I have been contemplating whether to classify myself as a non-racist or an anti-racist, and whether to join the social movement against color-blind racism that Bonilla-Silva claims needs to happen in order to defeat racism indefinitely. Before studying racism I never thought about the concept of white privilege and the tremendous influence it has on my life on an everyday basis.After my analysis of the different components of a non-racist versus an anti-racist and the certain privileges that resonate within each category, I feel almost guilty referring to myself as a non-racist. However, after analyzing Racism without Racist’s explanation of anti-racism and claim fo r an anti-racist movement, I believe that I still consider myself a non-racist, contrary to the author’s wishes. In spite of Bonilla-Silva’s argument, I believe that I can still combat racism without necessarily taking an â€Å"active role. I am not currently taking an active role in this movement, however in the future; I believe that I could possibly take a passive role in regards to this movement. The transformation from â€Å"nonracist† to â€Å"antiracist†, that the author describes, I think is an aggressive approach that could potentially generate substantial positive results in regards to combating racism. However, I personally don’t believe that the only way to fight racism is to take a military-like approach against it and resort to an in-your-face attempt to flip societal norms.Falling-back on a militant-style attack plot and fighting socially grounded powers could quite possibly work against achieving the collective goal of ending racis m. In order to accomplish this idea, the anti-racist coalition (which is an extreme minority) would have to convert massive numbers of the non-racist majority to a belief system that fundamentally contradicts the basic roots of their current values.Currently, I do not have an alternative solution to racism in America, however I do know that educating the population as a whole about this concept is a necessary step to accomplishing the overall goal. Through Bonilla-Silva’s distinction between non-racists and anti-racists, along with his call for a social movement against color-blind racism, I have determined that something has to be done about certain aspects of color-blind racism, such as the overall mindset of the American population.Be that as it may, combating color-blind racism will be an almost impossible task to accomplish for that fact that it is very difficult to get people to buy into a motion that they themselves are not emotionally invested in. Until the American s ociety can buy into the notion that color-blind racism is an actual cultural problem that is affecting minorities of all backgrounds, we will be a society filled with white privilege and subtle discrimination against non-whites. References Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo . 2010. Racism without Racists. Lanham, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.