Seeing Race In Modern America

In this fiercely urgent book, Matthew Pratt Guterl focuses on how and why we come to see race in very particular ways. What does it mean to see someone as a color? As racially mixed or ethnically ambiguous? What history makes such things possible? Drawing creatively from advertisements, YouTube videos, and everything in between, Guterl redirects our understanding of racial sight away from the dominant categories of color--away from brown and yellow and black and white--and instead insists that we confront the visual practices that make those same categories seem so irrefutably important. Zooming out for the bigger picture, Guterl illuminates the long history of the practice of seeing--and believing in--race, and reveals that our troublesome faith in the details discerned by the discriminating glance is widespread and very popular. In so doing, he upends the possibility of a postracial society by revealing how deeply race is embedded in our culture, with implications that are often matters of life and death.

This wide-reaching survey of race relations in America over the past 50 years takes a controversial stance: that the perception of serious race divisions in this country is outdated--and dangerous.

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

Every academic discipline has an origin story complicit with white supremacy. Racial hierarchy and colonialism structured the very foundations of most disciplines’ research and teaching paradigms. In the early twentieth century, the academy faced rising opposition and correction, evident in the intervention of scholars including W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Carter G. Woodson, and others. By the mid-twentieth century, education itself became a center in the struggle for social justice. Scholars mounted insurgent efforts to discredit some of the most odious intellectual defenses of white supremacy in academia, but the disciplines and their keepers remained unwilling to interrogate many of the racist foundations of their fields, instead embracing a framework of racial colorblindness as their default position. This book challenges scholars and students to see race again. Examining the racial histories and colorblindness in fields as diverse as social psychology, the law, musicology, literary studies, sociology, and gender studies, Seeing Race Again documents the profoundly contradictory role of the academy in constructing, naturalizing, and reproducing racial hierarchy. It shows how colorblindness compromises the capacity of disciplines to effectively respond to the wide set of contemporary political, economic, and social crises marking public life today.

Now more than ever, Race Matters is a book for all Americans, as it helps us to build a genuine multiracial democracy in the new millennium."--BOOK JACKET.

The #1 New York Times bestseller that sparked international dialogue is now a book for young adults! Based on the adult bestseller by Ibram X. Kendi, and co-authored by bestselling author Nic Stone, How to be a (Young) Antiracist will serve as a guide for teens seeking a way forward in acknowledging, identifying, and dismantling racism and injustice. The New York Times bestseller How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi is shaping the way a generation thinks about race and racism. How to be a (Young) Antiracist is a dynamic reframing of the concepts shared in the adult book, with young adulthood front and center. Aimed at readers 12 and up, and co-authored by award-winning children's book author Nic Stone, How to be a (Young) Antiracist empowers teen readers to help create a more just society. Antiracism is a journey--and now young adults will have a map to carve their own path. Kendi and Stone have revised this work to provide anecdotes and data that speaks directly to the experiences and concerns of younger readers, encouraging them to think critically and build a more equitable world in doing so.

Despite the apparent advances since the civil rights era, America remains fundamentally racist, argues award-winning author Joe Feagin. Racist America is a bold, thoughtful exploration of the ubiquity of race in contemporary life. From a black New Jersey dentist stopped by police more than 100 times for driving to work in an expensive car to the labourer who must defend his promotion against charges of undeserved affirmative action, Feagin lays bare the economic, ideologic, and political structure of American racism. In doing so he develops an antiracist theory rooted not only in the latest empirical data but also in the current reality of racism in the U.S.

Is a truly race-netrual society possible? Can the United States wipe the slate clean and surmount the racism of its past? Or is color blindness just another name for denial? In this penetrating and provocative book, Ellis Cose probes the depths of the American mind and exposes the contradictions, fears, hopes and illusions embedded in our complicated perceptions of race. Looking beyond the platitudes and pronouncements that tend to distort reality rather than illuminate it, Cose offers a visionary analysis of the steps we must take if we are serious about finding a true resolution to the thorny problem of race in America.

This text is an original reinterpretation of the iconic photographs of the black civil rights struggle. Berger's provocative study shows how the very pictures credited with arousing white sympathy, and thereby paving the way for civil rights legislation, actually limited the scope of racial reform in the 1960s.

This expansive three-volume set investigates racial representation in film, providing an authoritative cross-section of the most racially significant films, actors, directors, and movements in American cinematic history. Hollywood has always reflected current American cultural norms and ideas. As such, film provides a window into attitudes about race and ethnicity over the last century. This comprehensive set provides information on hundreds of films chosen based on scholarly consensus of their importance regarding the subject, examining aspects of race and ethnicity in American film through the historical context, themes, and people involved. This three-volume set highlights the most important films and artists of the era, identifying films, actors, or characterizations that were considered racist, were tremendously popular or hugely influential, attempted to be progressive, or some combination thereof. Readers will not only learn basic information about each subject but also be able to contextualize it culturally, historically, and in terms of its reception to understand what average moviegoers thought about the subject at the time of its popularity—and grasp how the subject is perceived now through the lens of history.