RPA Books on Race and Racism
This is a list of books recently mentioned by RPA members, on the RPA Email List, as useful texts for discussing race and racism in their classrooms. Some of their comments have been added, below, in order to explain precisely why each text is useful. (If those recommending such texts do not wish to have their comments, and/or their names, listed below, please let me know. Thanks. Jack).
Derrick Bell, And We are Not Saved: the Elusive Quest for Racial Justice, New York: Basic Books, 1987 and Faces at the Bottom of the Well: the Permanence of Racism, New York: Basic Books, 1992, are wonderful reading, because they are stories, and they hit very hard at white liberalism. But since they are in the form of debates too between Geneva Crenshaw and the Bell character, they make a complex dialectic. Students have a great time talking about them. Bell is very depressing about the future of racism in the U.S., but at the same time he is full of a faith in human kind. He is a legal theorist, of course, but I think the work is very understandable to those who know little about American constitutional law. Highly recommended. Iris Young.
Robert D. Bullard, ed., Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots, Boston: South End Press, 1993, and Laura Westra and Peter Wenz, eds., Faces of Environmental Racism: Confronting Issues of Global Justice, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995, might also be useful, since environmental racism makes these issues very clear. Also, from a Third World perspective, Vandana Shiva, Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology, London: Zed Books, 1993, is splendid. Roger S. Gottlieb
Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey, eds., Race Traitor, New York: Routledge, 1996, I'm using in my present course, "The Problem of Whiteness". It is fresh and provocative and students like it. I expect the same from the other books I'm using for the same course: Naomi Zack, ed., American Mixed Race: the culture of microdiversity, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995; Richard Delgado, ed., Critical Race Theory: the Cutting Edge, Phil.: Temple U. Press, 1995; Ann DuCille, Skin Trade, Cambridge: Harvard U.P. I highly recommend all these, particularly for their (anticipated) effectiveness in the classroom. By the way, I've also used the book mentioned by Marlene Fried, Patricia Williams's The Alchemy of Race and Rights, Harvard U.P 1991 as well as The rooster's egg, Harvard U.P. 1995, in other courses (Black Feminist Thought, African-American Philosophy), and they have met with quite favorable responses from students (and me). Tom Digby
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: from the 1960s to the 1980s, New York: Routledge, 1986 and David Theo Goldberg, ed., Anatomy of Racism, Minn.: U.Minnesota Press, 1990, people might find helpful in exploring the politics of race. Lucius Outlaw
Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work: the Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era, G.P.Putnam's Sons: New York, 1995, has a chapter called "Technology and the African-American Experience" which explains how African-American communities bore a disproportionate share of the burdens of the mechanization of agriculture and the automation of manufacturing. Tony Smith
David R. Roediger, Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Politics, and Working Class History, Verso: London, 1994 and The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class, Verso: London, 1991 are, in part, historical studies on how white working class men defined themselves in opposition to blacks. Ann Ferguson
Paula Rothenberg, Race, Class and Gender in the United States, New York: St.Martin's, 1992, integrates racism and sexism into the discussion of class. T. R. Quigley
Robert C. Smith has written a clear, concise, and informative handbook: Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era: Now You See It, Now You Don't, SUNY: Albany, 1995. He helpfully divides the question of racism into three categories: individual, institutional, and internal interiorization. His treatment of institutional racism attempts to control for "class." Racism is defined by the Carmichael-Hamilton definition according to power relations. Wilson's discounting of racism is questioned. The essential concepts are all here. Attitude data is helpfully summarized. For instance, white southern attitudes are somewhat less hostile than non-southern. Finally, Smith offers some personal accounts of police treatment in White Plains (!) and L.A. These questions are too important to leave to philosophers, says Smith. And this book is too helpful for philosophers to ignore. Greg Moses
Elizabeth Spelman, Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought, Boston: Beacon Press, 1988 when used after reading Carol Gilligan, in a course about "difference," might be useful. To follow up with 'ecology is a sistah's issues too' from Carol J. Adams, ed., Ecofeminism and the sacred, Continuum: New York, 1993, might also be useful. Roger S. Gottlieb
Robert D. Bullard, ed., Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots, Boston: South End Press, 1993, and Laura Westra and Peter Wenz, eds., Faces of Environmental Racism: Confronting Issues of Global Justice, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995, might also be useful, since environmental racism makes these issues very clear. Also, from a Third World perspective, Vandana Shiva, Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology, London: Zed Books, 1993, is splendid. Roger S. Gottlieb
Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey, eds., Race Traitor, New York: Routledge, 1996, I'm using in my present course, "The Problem of Whiteness". It is fresh and provocative and students like it. I expect the same from the other books I'm using for the same course: Naomi Zack, ed., American Mixed Race: the culture of microdiversity, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995; Richard Delgado, ed., Critical Race Theory: the Cutting Edge, Phil.: Temple U. Press, 1995; Ann DuCille, Skin Trade, Cambridge: Harvard U.P. I highly recommend all these, particularly for their (anticipated) effectiveness in the classroom. By the way, I've also used the book mentioned by Marlene Fried, Patricia Williams's The Alchemy of Race and Rights, Harvard U.P 1991 as well as The rooster's egg, Harvard U.P. 1995, in other courses (Black Feminist Thought, African-American Philosophy), and they have met with quite favorable responses from students (and me). Tom Digby
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: from the 1960s to the 1980s, New York: Routledge, 1986 and David Theo Goldberg, ed., Anatomy of Racism, Minn.: U.Minnesota Press, 1990, people might find helpful in exploring the politics of race. Lucius Outlaw
Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work: the Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era, G.P.Putnam's Sons: New York, 1995, has a chapter called "Technology and the African-American Experience" which explains how African-American communities bore a disproportionate share of the burdens of the mechanization of agriculture and the automation of manufacturing. Tony Smith
David R. Roediger, Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Politics, and Working Class History, Verso: London, 1994 and The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class, Verso: London, 1991 are, in part, historical studies on how white working class men defined themselves in opposition to blacks. Ann Ferguson
Paula Rothenberg, Race, Class and Gender in the United States, New York: St.Martin's, 1992, integrates racism and sexism into the discussion of class. T. R. Quigley
Robert C. Smith has written a clear, concise, and informative handbook: Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era: Now You See It, Now You Don't, SUNY: Albany, 1995. He helpfully divides the question of racism into three categories: individual, institutional, and internal interiorization. His treatment of institutional racism attempts to control for "class." Racism is defined by the Carmichael-Hamilton definition according to power relations. Wilson's discounting of racism is questioned. The essential concepts are all here. Attitude data is helpfully summarized. For instance, white southern attitudes are somewhat less hostile than non-southern. Finally, Smith offers some personal accounts of police treatment in White Plains (!) and L.A. These questions are too important to leave to philosophers, says Smith. And this book is too helpful for philosophers to ignore. Greg Moses
Elizabeth Spelman, Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought, Boston: Beacon Press, 1988 when used after reading Carol Gilligan, in a course about "difference," might be useful. To follow up with 'ecology is a sistah's issues too' from Carol J. Adams, ed., Ecofeminism and the sacred, Continuum: New York, 1993, might also be useful. Roger S. Gottlieb