The Construction and Rearticulation of Race in a Post-Racial America


Book Description

In my view, The Negro Problem in 2008 is part law, part politics, part oppression, part internalized oppression and part ideology. As America becomes more polarized into red states and blues states, into liberals and conservatives, into right, left, and even further into black and white, racism has become even more pronounced if not more difficult to identify. The Negro Problem of 2008 is helped along willingly by blacks whose sense of inferiority and internalized oppression so blind them that they too deal in oppressive and denigrating images for profits. Working hand in hand with the white executives who profit from those images and the white liberals who justify this denigration, they too add grist to the mill of oppression and exclusion. Members of the American media have moved from reporting the news to advancing their opinions and discussing race in a roundabout way, which they claim is race neutral, but which is in fact race conscious. How has their unfettered power defined the coverage of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary? What role does rap music, with its revival of the most vile and base stereotypes of black men from slavery and the Jim Crow era and its attendant culture of debauchery, play in stoking racial subordination and domination? Does the fact that so many rap artists are black provide them with the veritable black pass to lyrically and virtually debase and defile black women and themselves that whites, by virtue of their whiteness, are denied?




The Post-Racial Society is Here


Book Description

In a provocative and controversial analysis, Wilbur C. Rich’s The Post-Racial Society is Here conclusively demonstrates that nation is in midst of a post-racial society. Yet many Americans are skeptical of this fundamental social transformation. The failure of recognition is related to the remnants of the previous race-based society. Recognizing the advent of a post-racial society is not to gainsay recurrent racial incidents or a denial of the socio-economic gap between the races. Using the findings of historians and social scientists, this book outlines why the construction and deconstruction of the race-based society was such a difficult and daunting enterprise. Starting from the nation’s inception, Rich examines how the nation elites used racial language, separate schools, and the media to divide Americans. After World War II, the nation used U.S. Supreme Court rulings and the Congressional passage of Civil Rights laws to dismantle the institutional support for racial segregation and discrimination. The black Civil Rights Movement facilitated and consolidated the movement toward socio-political inclusion of African Americans. Rich alerts the reader to the unprecedented progress made and why the forces of the new global economy demand that we move faster to make society more inclusive. This thought-provocking book should interest scholars of sociology, Africana Studies, American studies and African American politics.




The Post-Racial Mystique


Book Description

Despite claims from pundits and politicians that we now live in a post-racial America, people seem to keep finding ways to talk about race—from celebrations of the inauguration of the first Black president to resurgent debates about police profiling, race and racism remain salient features of our world. When faced with fervent anti-immigration sentiments, record incarceration rates of Blacks and Latinos, and deepening socio-economic disparities, a new question has erupted in the last decade: What does being post-racial mean? The Post-Racial Mystique explores how a variety of media—the news, network television, and online, independent media—debate, define and deploy the term “post-racial” in their representations of American politics and society. Using examples from both mainstream and niche media—from prime-time television series to specialty Christian media and audience interactions on social media—Catherine Squires draws upon a variety of disciplines including communication studies, sociology, political science, and cultural studies in order to understand emergent strategies for framing post-racial America. She reveals the ways in which media texts cast U.S. history, re-imagine interpersonal relationships, employ statistics, and inventively redeploy other identity categories in a quest to formulate different ways of responding to race.




Ghosts of Jim Crow


Book Description

Discusses the political, economic, educational, and social reasons the United States is not a "post-racial" society and argues that legal reform can successfully create a "post-racial" America.




The Myth of Post-racial America


Book Description

From the publisher. The Myth of Post-Racial America provides a history of race and racism in the United States. These concepts became integral parts of American society through social, psychological, and political decisions, which are documented here so readers can learn learn about the origins of myths and stereotypes that have created schisms in our society form its founding to the present day. This information is essential reading for students and teachers so that they can become more effective in their work and value cultural differences, modes of expression, and learning styles.




The Problem of Post-Racialism


Book Description

This book argues that Americans' belief in post-racialism, rooted in both ideology and material progress among racial minorities, is wrong because both old and new patterns of racism continue to hinder the acceptance of African Americans as true equals in American society, despite the recent mobility of the black middle class.




Reclaiming Integration and the Language of Race in the "Post-Racial" Era


Book Description

The book is divided into two major sections: (1) “Reclaiming Integration”; (2) “Reclaiming the Language of Race.” Both sections are located in the context of the “post-racial” era and analyzed by nationally renowned scholars in various dimensions. The purpose of this organization is to link structural efforts to encourage voluntary integration with discursive efforts to broaden our social understanding of race in ways that advance the project of American democracy. It is our firm belief that we cannot achieve meaningful advances against enduring racial inequalities without linking structural impacts of racialization (e.g., racial inequalities in economics, education, healthcare, etc.) to the social discourse of race, specifically in terms of the rejection of post-racial politics that are based on the false idea that racism and discrimination are no longer obstacles to opportunity in the United States.




Who We Be


Book Description

Incorporating powerful images from a range of artistic venues, an intellectual follow-up to the award-winning Cant Stop Won't Stop considers how violent culture disputes are still occurring in spite of the past half century's progress in race relations.




Race in Society


Book Description

Comprehensive yet concise, Margaret Andersen’s Race in Society, Second Edition is a topical introduction to race and ethnicity organized around four key questions: What does the idea of race mean and where does it come from? What are the consequences of the social construction of race? How is racial inequality structured into social institutions? What are different policies and approaches for change toward racial justice? In her accessible, student-friendly style, Andersen introduces readers to the current scholarship on race, including recent studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic and the protests following the murder of George Floyd. New to this edition: New coverage of the effects of COVID-19 included throughout the book, including its impact on anti-Asian racism, violent crime, racial disparities in health care, and people of color in low wage service jobs Expanded discussion of immigration, including US politics about immigration and national borders displays the connection between immigration and racialization Updated discussion of policing, police violence, and both historical and contemporary acts of vigilante “justice” against people of color Updated information on residential and educational segregation including new material on the racial achievement gap and the effects of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic




Racecraft


Book Description

A new edition of a celebrated contemporary work on race and racism Praised by a wide variety of people from Ta-Nehisi Coates to Zadie Smith, Racecraft “ought to be positioned,” as Bookforum put it, “at the center of any discussion of race in American life.” Most people assume racism grows from a perception of human difference: the fact of race gives rise to the practice of racism. Sociologist Karen E. Fields and historian Barbara J. Fields argue otherwise: the practice of racism produces the illusion of race, through what they call “racecraft.” And this phenomenon is intimately entwined with other forms of inequality in American life. So pervasive are the devices of racecraft in American history, economic doctrine, politics, and everyday thinking that the presence of racecraft itself goes unnoticed. That the promised post-racial age has not dawned, the authors argue, reflects the failure of Americans to develop a legitimate language for thinking about and discussing inequality. That failure should worry everyone who cares about democratic institutions.