Racial Justice & Antiracism Resources: Books

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST   Hailed by Toni Morrison as "required reading," a bold and personal literary exploration of America's racial history by "the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race" (Rolling Stone)   NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN * NAMED ONE OF PASTE'S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE * NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * O: The Oprah Magazine * The Washington Post * People * Entertainment Weekly * Vogue * Los Angeles Times * San Francisco Chronicle * Chicago Tribune * New York * Newsday * Library Journal * Publishers Weekly   In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men--bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates's attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son--and readers--the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children's lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan M. Metzl A physician reveals how right-wing backlash policies have mortal consequences -- even for the white voters they promise to help Named one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by Esquire and the Boston Globe In the era of Donald Trump, many lower- and middle-class white Americans are drawn to politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death. Physician Jonathan M. Metzl's quest to understand the health implications of "backlash governance" leads him across America's heartland. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, he examines how racial resentment has fueled progun laws in Missouri, resistance to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. And he shows these policies' costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, falling life expectancies, and rising dropout rates. White Americans, Metzl argues, must reject the racial hierarchies that promise to aid them but in fact lead our nation to demise.

Experiencing Racism by Richard Seltzer (Editor); Nicole E. Johnson (Editor) Political science professor Seltzer and independent researcher Johnson have assembled a collection of short essays by a diverse group of college students from 11 different universities about their worst personal experiences with racism or discrimination. Over 200 essays are grouped into 19 different topics, such as childhood experiences, relationships, encounters with law enforcement and racial slurs.

Faces at the Bottom of the Well by Derrick A. Bell The noted civil rights activist uses allegory and historical example to present a radical vision of the persistence of racism in America. These essays shed light on some of the most perplexing and vexing issues of our day: affirmative action, the disparity between civil rights law and reality, the racist outbursts" of some black leaders, the temptation toward violent retaliation, and much more.

Racial Profiling by Karen S. Glover Sociologist Glover examines racial profiling as an element used to usher men of color into a justice system that is racially ordered in many aspects. While this is a logical way to frame the issue and a solid foundation for an examination of profiling the author provides a deeper perspective by questioning methods used to collect criminological data, develop theoretical foundations, and teach about crime and social control. The study of criminology tends to focus on formal stages, such as sentencing and parole. In contrast institutionalized racism is more active, often in subtle ways, during informal stages, Glover's research examines these informal processes and their impacts on the people targeted by the system.

Racism Without Racists by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva In this book, Bonilla-Silva explores with systematic interview data, the nature and components of post-civil rights racial ideology. Specifically, he documents the existence of a new suave and apparently non-racial racial ideology he labels color-blind racism. He suggests that this ideology, anchored on the decontextualized, a historical, and abstract extension of liberalism to racial matters, has become the organizational matrix, whites use to explain and account for racial matters in America.

So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo In this New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo offers a hard-hitting but user-friendly examination of race in America Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy--from police brutality to the mass incarceration of Black Americans--has put a media spotlight on racism in our society. Still, it is a difficult subject to talk about. How do you tell your roommate her jokes are racist? Why did your sister-in-law take umbrage when you asked to touch her hair--and how do you make it right? How do you explain white privilege to your white, privileged friend? In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to "model minorities" in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life. "Oluo gives us--both white people and people of color--that language to engage in clear, constructive, and confident dialogue with each other about how to deal with racial prejudices and biases." --National Book Review "Generous and empathetic, yet usefully blunt . . . it's for anyone who wants to be smarter and more empathetic about matters of race and engage in more productive anti-racist action." --Salon (Required Reading)

Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society. Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America--it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis. As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities. In shedding light on this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope. Praise for Stamped from the Beginning: "We often describe a wonderful book as 'mind-blowing' or 'life-changing' but I've found this rarely to actually be the case. I found both descriptions accurate for Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning... I will never look at racial discrimination again after reading this marvellous, ambitious, and clear-sighted book." - George Saunders, Financial Times, Best Books of 2017 "Ambitious, well-researched and worth the time of anyone who wants to understand racism." --Seattle Times "A deep (and often disturbing) chronicling of how anti-black thinking has entrenched itself in the fabric of American society." --The Atlantic Winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Bestseller On President Obama's Black History Month Recommended Reading List Finalist for the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Boston Globe, Washington Post, Chicago Review of Books, The Root, Buzzfeed, Bustle, and Entropy

Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson NOW ANEW YORK TIMES, PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY, INDIEBOUND, LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, CHRONICLE HERALD, SALISBURY POST, GUELPH MERCURY TRIBUNE, ANDBOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER | NAMED A BEST/MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2017 BY:The Washington Post *Bustle *Men's Journal *The Chicago Reader *StarTribune*Blavity* The Guardian* NBC New York'sBill's Books* Kirkus* Essence "One of the most frank and searing discussions on race ... a deeply serious, urgent book, which should take its place in the tradition of Baldwin'sThe Fire Next Time and King'sWhy We Can't Wait." --The New York Times Book Review Toni Morrison hailsTears We Cannot Stop as "Elegantly written and powerful in several areas: moving personal recollections; profound cultural analysis; and guidance for moral redemption. A work to relish." Stephen King says: "Here's a sermon that's as fierce as it is lucid...If you're black, you'll feel a spark of recognition in every paragraph. If you're white, Dyson tells you what you need to know--what this white man needed to know, at least. This is a major achievement. I read it and said amen." Short, emotional, literary, powerful--Tears We Cannot Stop is the book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations will want to read. As the country grapples with racist division at a level not seen since the 1960s, one man's voice soars above the rest with conviction and compassion. In his 2016New York Times op-ed piece "Death in Black and White," Michael Eric Dyson moved a nation. Now he continues to speak out inTears We Cannot Stop--a provocative and deeply personal call for change. Dyson argues that if we are to make real racial progress we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted. "The time is at hand for reckoning with the past, recognizing the truth of the present, and moving together to redeem the nation for our future. If we don't act now, if you don't address race immediately, there very well may be no future."

Toxic Inequality by Thomas M. Shapiro From a leading authority on race and public policy, a deeply researched account of how families rise and fall today Since the Great Recession, most Americans' standard of living has stagnated or declined. Economic inequality is at historic highs. But inequality's impact differs by race; African Americans' net wealth is just a tenth that of white Americans, and over recent decades, white families have accumulated wealth at three times the rate of black families. In our increasingly diverse nation, sociologist Thomas M. Shapiro argues, wealth disparities must be understood in tandem with racial inequities--a dangerous combination he terms "toxic inequality." In Toxic Inequality, Shapiro reveals how these forces combine to trap families in place. Following nearly two hundred families of different races and income levels over a period of twelve years, Shapiro's research vividly documents the recession's toll on parents and children, the ways families use assets to manage crises and create opportunities, and the real reasons some families build wealth while others struggle in poverty. The structure of our neighborhoods, workplaces, and tax code-much more than individual choices-push some forward and hold others back. A lack of assets, far more common in families of color, can often ruin parents' careful plans for themselves and their children. Toxic inequality may seem inexorable, but it is not inevitable. America's growing wealth gap and its yawning racial divide have been forged by history and preserved by policy, and only bold, race-conscious reforms can move us toward a more just society. "Everyone concerned about the toxic effects of inequality must read this book."--Robert B. Reich "This is one of the most thought-provoking books I have read on economic inequality in the US."--William Julius Wilson

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo 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. Download readers guides at www.beacon.org/whitefragility.

White Rage by Carol Anderson National Book Critics Circle Award Winner New York Times Bestseller ANew York Times Notable Book of the Year AWashington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year ABoston Globe Best Book of 2016 AChicago Review of Books Best Nonfiction Book of 2016 From the Civil War to our combustible present, acclaimed historian Carol Anderson reframes our continuing conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America. As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014, and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as "black rage," historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed inThe Washington Post suggesting that this was, instead, "white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames," she argued, "everyone had ignored the kindling." Since 1865 and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, every time African Americans have made advances towards full participation in our democracy, white reaction has fueled a deliberate and relentless rollback of their gains. The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction was greeted with the Black Codes and Jim Crow; the Supreme Court's landmark 1954Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South while taxpayer dollars financed segregated white private schools; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 triggered a coded but powerful response, the so-called Southern Strategy and the War on Drugs that disenfranchised millions of African Americans while propelling presidents Nixon and Reagan into the White House, and then the election of America's first black President, led to the expressionof white rage that has been as relentless as it has been brutal. Carefully linking these and other historical flashpoints when social progress for African Americans was countered by deliberate and cleverly crafted opposition, Anderson pulls back the veil that has long covered actions made in the name of protecting democracy, fiscal responsibility, or protection against fraud, rendering visible the long lineage of white rage. Compelling and dramatic in the unimpeachable history it relates,White Rage will add an important new dimension to the national conversation about race in America.

The Anger Gap by Davin L. Phoenix Anger is a powerful mobilizing force in American politics on both sides of the political aisle, but does it motivate all groups equally? This book offers a new conceptualization of anger as a political resource that mobilizes black and white Americans differentially to exacerbate political inequality. Drawing on survey data from the last forty years, experiments, and rhetoric analysis, Phoenix finds that - from Reagan to Trump - black Americans register significantly less anger than their white counterparts and that anger (in contrast to pride) has a weaker mobilizing effect on their political participation. The book examines both the causes of this and the consequences. Pointing to black Americans' tempered expectations of politics and the stigmas associated with black anger, it shows how race and lived experience moderate the emergence of emotions and their impact on behavior. The book makes multiple theoretical contributions and offers important practical insights for political strategy.

Color Behind Bars by Scott Wm. Bowman (Editor) A diverse, critical analysis of racial and ethnic disparities within the American criminal justice system that encourages critical thinking by providing various sides to the issues. Low-income African Americans, Latin Americans, and American Indians bear the statistical brunt of policing, death penalty verdicts, and sentencing disparities in the United States. Why does this long-standing inequity exist in a country where schoolchildren are taught to expect "justice for all"? The original essays in this two-volume set not only examine the deep-rooted issues and lay out theories as to why racism remains a problem in our prison system, but they also provide potential solutions to the problem. The work gives a broad, multicultural overview of the history of overrepresentation of ethnic minorities in our prison system, examining white/black disparities as well as racism and issues of ethnic-based discrimination concerning other ethnic minorities. This up-to-date resource is ideally suited for undergraduate students who are enrolled in criminal justice or racial/ethnic studies classes and general readers interested in the U.S. criminal justice system. * Presents a historical examination of racial and ethnic influences in the early formation of the criminal justice system * Allows readers to identify the ways in which our prison system has changed throughout history regarding racism--and the ways in which it has remained the same * Provides a critical analysis of the current race- and ethnicity-based criminal justice system * Identifies intersectionalities of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status within the criminal justice system

The Color of Crime by Katheryn Russell-Brown When Americans are asked what concerns them most about the direction of the country, crime and racial tensions invariably figure prominently in the answer. In the minds of many, these two problems are inextricably linked. Yet opinions and beliefs about race and crime are often informed as much by myth and preconception as by fact and reality. In this important book, Katheryn K. Russell surveys the landscape of American crime and identifies some of the country's most significant racial pathologies. Why do Black and White Americans perceive police actions so differently? Is White fear of Black crime justified? Do African Americans really "protect their own"? Should they? Perhaps the most explosive and troublesome phenomenon at the nexus of race and crime is the racial hoax--a contemporary version of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Examining both White-on-Black hoaxes such as Susan Smith's and Charles Stuart's claims that Black men were responsible for crimes they themselves committed, and Black-on-White hoaxes such as the Tawana Brawley episode, Russell illustrates the formidable and lasting damage that occurs when racial stereotypes are manipulated and exploited for personal advantage. She shows us how such hoaxes have disastrous consequences and compellingly argues for harsher punishments for offenders. Stressing that journalists, scholars, and policymakers alike have an ethical imperative to disregard and refute inflammatory or wrong-headed work on race, The Color of Crime is a lucid and forceful book, impossible to ignore.

Covert Racism by Rodney D. Coates (Volume Editor); Janet Morrison (Contribution by) "Stonewall" Jackson's Valley Campaign saw a Confederate Army outmaneuver and defeat three times their number of Union troops in a lightning-swift campaign in the following battles: First Kernstown, McDowell, Front Royal, First Winchester, Cross Keys, Port Republic. On the morning of June 9 1862, victorious Confederate troops under the command of Major General "Stonewall" Jackson began a general advance in pursuit of the withdrawing Union forces following the battle of Port Republic. This was the sixth major battle fought between Union and Confederate troops during a three-month period in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in the spring of 1862. It was also, effectively, the final battle of what became known as Jackson's Valley Campaign. The campaign, which had begun with a Confederate defeat at the First Battle of Kernstown on March 23, became a showcase for the maneuverability and mobility of Jackson's forces as, heavily outnumbered, they kept the larger Union forces pinned and down and off balance. "Stonewall" Jackson had performed his task of keeping General McDowell's Union forces away from the Peninsula Campaign better than anyone could have expected, and following his final victory at Port Republic he was able to force march his men to join up with Lee at Richmond in time to take part in the Seven Days Battles that saved Richmond for the Confederacy. Jackson became a legend for his actions in the Valley Campaign. His army marched over 600 miles in 48 days to win five major battles. His forces, at no time numbering more than 17,000 men, overwhelmed a combined Union force of 50,000, demonstrating in every case his ability to maneuver his troops into a tactical advantage of at least four to three.

Despite the Best Intentions by John B. Diamond; Amanda E. Lewis On the surface, Riverview High School looks like the post-racial ideal. Serving an enviably affluent, diverse, and liberal district, the school is well-funded, its teachers are well-trained, and many of its students are high-achieving. Yet Riverview has not escaped the same unrelentingquestion that plagues schools throughout America: why is it that even when all of the circumstances seem right, black and Latina/o students continue to lag behind their peers?Through five years' worth of interviews and data-gathering at Riverview, Amanda Lewis and John Diamond have created a powerful and illuminating study of how the racial achievement gap continues to afflict American schools more than fifty years after the formal dismantling of segregation. As studentsprogress from elementary school to middle school to high school, their level of academic achievement increasingly tracks along racial lines, with white and Asian students maintaining higher GPAs and standardized testing scores, taking more advanced classes, and attaining better college admissionresults than their black and Latina/o counterparts. Most research to date has focused on the role of poverty, family stability, and other external influences in explaining poor performance at school, especially in urban contexts. Diamond and Lewis instead situate their research in a suburban school,and look at what factors within the school itself could be causing the disparity. Most crucially, they challenge many common explanations of the "racial achievement gap," exploring what race actually means in this situation, and how it matters.Diamond and Lewis' research brings clarity and data into a debate that is too often dominated by stereotyping, race-baiting, and demagoguery. An in-depth study with far-reaching consequences, Despite the Best Intentions revolutionizes our understanding of both the knotty problem of academicdisparities and the larger question of the color line in American society.

Healing Our Divided Society: Investing in America Fifty Years after the Kerner Report by Fred Harris (Editor); Alan Curtis (Editor) In 1968, the Kerner Commission concluded that America was heading toward "two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal." Today, America's communities are experiencing increasing racial tensions and inequality, working-class resentment over the unfulfilled American Dream, white supremacy violence, toxic inaction in Washington, and the decline of the nation's example around the world.In Healing Our Divided Society, Fred Harris, the last surviving member of the Kerner Commission, along with Eisenhower Foundation CEO Alan Curtis, re-examine fifty years later the work still necessary towards the goals set forth in The Kerner Report. This timely volume unites the interests of minorities and white working- and middle-class Americans to propose a strategy to reduce poverty, inequality, and racial injustice. Reflecting on America's urban climate today, this new report sets forth evidence-based policies concerning employment, education, housing, neighborhood development, and criminal justice based on what has been proven to work--and not work. Contributors include: Oscar Perry Abello, Elijah Anderson, Anil N.F. Aranha, Jared Bernstein, Henry G. Cisneros, Elliott Currie, Linda Darling-Hammond, Martha F. Davis, E. J. Dionne, Jr., Marian Wright Edelman, Delbert S. Elliott, Carol Emig, Jeff Faux, Ron Grzywinski, Michael P. Jeffries, Lamar K. Johnson, Celinda Lake, Marilyn Melkonian, Gary Orfield, Diane Ravitch, Laurie Robinson, Herbert C. Smitherman, Jr., Joseph Stiglitz, Dorothy Stoneman, Kevin  Washburn, Valerie Wilson, Gary Younge,  Julian E. Zelizer, and the editors

Invisible Enemy by Greta de Jong This highly accessible account of the evolution of American racism outlines how 'colorblind' approaches to discrimination ensured the perpetuation of racial inequality in the United States well beyond the 1960s. A highly accessible account of the evolution of American racism, its perpetuation, and black people's struggles for equality in the post-civil rights era Guides students to a better understanding of the experiences of black Americans and their ongoing struggles for justice, by highlighting the interconnectedness of African American history with that of the nation as a whole Highlights the economic and political functions that racism has served throughout the nation's history Discusses the continuation of the freedom movement beyond the 1960s to provide a comprehensive new historiography of racial equality and social justice

Killing with Prejudice by R. J. Maratea A history of the McCleskey v. Kemp Supreme Court ruling that effectively condoned racism in capital cases In 1978 Warren McCleskey, a black man, killed a white police officer in Georgia.  He was convicted by a jury of 11 whites and 1 African American, and was sentenced to death.  Although McCleskey's lawyers were able to prove that Georgia courts applied the death penalty to blacks who killed whites four times as often as when the victim was black, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence in McCleskey v.Kemp, thus institutionalizing the idea that racial bias was acceptable in the capital punishment system.  After a thirteen-year legal journey, McCleskey was executed in 1991.   In Killing with Prejudice, R.J. Maratea chronicles the entire litigation process which culminated in what has been called "the Dred Scott decision of our time." Ultimately, the Supreme Court chose to overlook compelling empirical evidence that revealed the discriminatory manner in which the assailants of African Americans are systematically undercharged and the aggressors of white victims are far more likely to receive a death sentence.  He draws a clear line from the lynchings of the Jim Crow era to the contemporary acceptance of the death penalty and the problem of mass incarceration today. The McCleskey decision underscores the racial, socioeconomic, and gender disparities in modern American capital punishment, and the case is fundamental to understanding how the death penalty functions for the defendant, victims, and within the American justice system as a whole.   

The Origin of Others by Toni Morrison; Ta-Nehisi Coates (Foreword by) America's foremost novelist reflects on the themes that preoccupy her work and increasingly dominate national and world politics: race, fear, borders, the mass movement of peoples, the desire for belonging. What is race and why does it matter? What motivates the human tendency to construct Others? Why does the presence of Others make us so afraid? Drawing on her Norton Lectures, Toni Morrison takes up these and other vital questions bearing on identity in The Origin of Others. In her search for answers, the novelist considers her own memories as well as history, politics, and especially literature. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Camara Laye are among the authors she examines. Readers of Morrison's fiction will welcome her discussions of some of her most celebrated books--Beloved, Paradise, and A Mercy. If we learn racism by example, then literature plays an important part in the history of race in America, both negatively and positively. Morrison writes about nineteenth-century literary efforts to romance slavery, contrasting them with the scientific racism of Samuel Cartwright and the banal diaries of the plantation overseer and slaveholder Thomas Thistlewood. She looks at configurations of blackness, notions of racial purity, and the ways in which literature employs skin color to reveal character or drive narrative. Expanding the scope of her concern, she also addresses globalization and the mass movement of peoples in this century. National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates provides a foreword to Morrison's most personal work of nonfiction to date.

Racial Inequity in Special Education by Daniel J. Losen (Editor); Gary Orfield (Editor)

Racism: A Short History by George M. Fredrickson Are antisemitism and white supremacy manifestations of a general phenomenon? Why didn't racism appear in Europe before the fourteenth century, and why did it flourish as never before in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? Why did the twentieth century see institutionalized racism in its most extreme forms? Why are egalitarian societies particularly susceptible to virulent racism? What do apartheid South Africa, Nazi Germany, and the American South under Jim Crow have in common? How did the Holocaust advance civil rights in the United States? With a rare blend of learning, economy, and cutting insight, George Fredrickson surveys the history of Western racism from its emergence in the late Middle Ages to the present. Beginning with the medieval antisemitism that put Jews beyond the pale of humanity, he traces the spread of racist thinking in the wake of European expansionism and the beginnings of the African slave trade. And he examines how the Enlightenment and nineteenth-century romantic nationalism created a new intellectual context for debates over slavery and Jewish emancipation. Fredrickson then makes the first sustained comparison between the color-coded racism of nineteenth-century America and the antisemitic racism that appeared in Germany around the same time. He finds similarity enough to justify the common label but also major differences in the nature and functions of the stereotypes invoked. The book concludes with a provocative account of the rise and decline of the twentieth century's overtly racist regimes--the Jim Crow South, Nazi Germany, and apartheid South Africa--in the context of world historical developments. This illuminating work is the first to treat racism across such a sweep of history and geography. It is distinguished not only by its original comparison of modern racism's two most significant varieties--white supremacy and antisemitism--but also by its eminent readability.

Silent Covenants by Derrick Bell When the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education was handed down in 1954, many civil rights advocates believed that the decision, which declared public school segregation unconstitutional, would become the Holy Grail of racial justice. Fifty years later, despite its legalirrelevance and the racially separate and educationally ineffective state of public schooling for most black children, Brown is still viewed by many as the perfect precedent.Here, Derrick Bell shatters the shining image of this celebrated ruling. He notes that, despite the onerous burdens of segregation, many black schools functioned well and racial bigotry had not rendered blacks a damaged race. He maintains that, given what we now know about the pervasive nature ofracism, the Court should have determined instead to rigorously enforce the "equal" component of the "separate but equal" standard. Racial policy, Bell maintains, is made through silent covenants--unspoken convergences of interest and involuntary sacrifices of rights--that ensure that policiesconform to priorities set by policy-makers. Blacks and whites are the fortuitous winners or losers in these unspoken agreements. The experience with Brown, Bell urges, should teach us that meaningful progress in the quest for racial justice requires more than the assertion of harms. Strategies mustrecognize and utilize the interest-convergence factors that strongly influence racial policy decisions.In Silent Covenants, Bell condenses more than four decades of thought and action into a powerful and eye-opening book.

Suspect Citizens by Frank R. Baumgartner; Derek A. Epp; Kelsey Shoub Suspect Citizens offers the most comprehensive look to date at the most common form of police-citizen interactions, the routine traffic stop. Throughout the war on crime, police agencies have used traffic stops to search drivers suspected of carrying contraband. From the beginning, police agencies made it clear that very large numbers of police stops would have to occur before an officer might interdict a significant drug shipment. Unstated in that calculation was that many Americans would be subjected to police investigations so that a small number of high-level offenders might be found. The key element in this strategy, which kept it hidden from widespread public scrutiny, was that middle-class white Americans were largely exempt from its consequences. Tracking these police practices down to the officer level, Suspect Citizens documents the extreme rarity of drug busts and reveals sustained and troubling disparities in how racial groups are treated.

White Racism by Joseph R. Feagin; Hernan Vera