"This book conducts a comparative study of three literary traditions - post-1960 Asian American, Asian Canadian and Black experimental poetry - which are usually examined separately. In so doing, it intervenes in conventional understandings of postwar North American racial formation and argues that through poetry we can examine the intersection between race and capitalism. Arguing that contemporary Black, Asian American and Asian Canadian poets such as Myung Mi Kim, Nathaniel Macket, Larissa Lai and Erica Hunt challenge established definitions of race, this book develops an account of experimental poetry's understanding of race as a range of relational configurations of subjects within racial groups and across racial divisions. In sum, this book redefines some of the basic terms of analysis of contemporary US poetry and poetics, critical race/ethnic studies, racial capitalism and contemporary theories of comparative racialization."--

Examining three literary traditions – post-1960 Asian American, Asian Canadian and Black experimental poetry – this book reframes contemporary scholarly accounts of post-war North American comparative racial group formation, demonstrating how such poetry investigates contemporary Black-Asian relations and maps the complex co-constitution of race and capitalism at different spatial scales. Offering extended close readings of contemporary Black, Asian American and Asian Canadian experimental poets such as Myung Mi Kim, Erica Hunt, Larissa Lai and Ed Roberson, this book argues that these writers redefine race as a changing and politically contested form of constraint and possibility powerfully shaped by economic history and capitalist globalization. This study retheorizes some basic terms of analysis of contemporary US poetry and poetics, critical race and ethnic studies, racial capitalism and contemporary theories of comparative and relational racialization.

'Why are you making this about race?' This question is repeated daily in public and in the media. Calling someone racist in these times of mounting white supremacy seems to be a worse insult than racism itself. In our supposedly post-racial society, surely it’s time to stop talking about race? This powerful refutation is a call to notice not just when and how race still matters but when, how and why it is said not to matter. Race critical scholar Alana Lentin argues that society is in urgent need of developing the skills of racial literacy, by jettisoning the idea that race is something and unveiling what race does as a key technology of modern rule, hidden in plain sight. Weaving together international examples, she eviscerates misconceptions such as reverse racism and the newfound acceptability of 'race realism', bursts the 'I’m not racist, but' justification, complicates the common criticisms of identity politics and warns against using concerns about antisemitism as a proxy for antiracism. Dominant voices in society suggest we are talking too much about race. Lentin shows why we actually need to talk about it more and how in doing so we can act to make it matter less.

The book the American Prospect calls “an essential resource for future reformers on how not to govern,” by America’s leading defender of the public interest and a bestselling historian “An essential read for those who want to fight the assault on public goods and the commons.” —Naomi Klein A sweeping exposé of the ways in which private interests strip public goods of their power and diminish democracy, the hardcover edition of The Privatization of Everything elicited a wide spectrum of praise: Kirkus Reviews hailed it as “a strong, economics-based argument for restoring the boundaries between public goods and private gains,” Literary Hub featured the book on a Best Nonfiction list, calling it “a far-reaching, comprehensible, and necessary book,” and Publishers Weekly dubbed it a “persuasive takedown of the idea that the private sector knows best.” From Diane Ravitch (“an important new book about the dangers of privatization”) to Heather McGhee (“a well-researched call to action”), the rave reviews mirror the expansive nature of the book itself, covering the impact of privatization on every aspect of our lives, from water and trash collection to the justice system and the military. Cohen and Mikaelian also demonstrate how citizens can—and are—wresting back what is ours: A Montana city took back its water infrastructure after finding that they could do it better and cheaper. Colorado towns fought back well-funded campaigns to preserve telecom monopolies and hamstring public broadband. A motivated lawyer fought all the way to the Supreme Court after the state of Georgia erected privatized paywalls around its legal code. “Enlightening and sobering” (Rosanne Cash), The Privatization of Everything connects the dots across a wide range of issues and offers what Cash calls “a progressive voice with a firm eye on justice [that] can carefully parse out complex issues for those of us who take pride in citizenship.”

The twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of the groundbreaking classic, with a new introduction First published in 1993, on the one-year anniversary of the Los Angeles riots, Race Matters became a national best seller that has gone on to sell more than half a million copies. This classic treatise on race contains Dr. West’s most incisive essays on the issues relevant to black Americans, including the crisis in leadership in the Black community, Black conservatism, Black-Jewish relations, myths about Black sexuality, and the legacy of Malcolm X. The insights Dr. West brings to these complex problems remain relevant, provocative, creative, and compassionate. In a new introduction for the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, Dr. West argues that we are in the midst of a spiritual blackout characterized by imperial decline, racial animosity, and unchecked brutality and terror as seen in Baltimore, Ferguson, and Charlottesville. Calling for a moral and spiritual awakening, Dr. West finds hope in the collective and visionary resistance exemplified by the Movement for Black Lives, Standing Rock, and the Black freedom tradition. Now more than ever, Race Matters is an essential book for all Americans, helping us to build a genuine multiracial democracy in the new millennium.

How racism and discrimination have been central to democracies from the classical period to today As right-wing nationalism and authoritarian populism gain momentum across the world, liberals, and even some conservatives, worry that democratic principles are under threat. In The Spectre of Race, Michael Hanchard argues that the current rise in xenophobia and racist rhetoric is nothing new and that exclusionary policies have always been central to democratic practices since their beginnings in classical times. Contending that democracy has never been for all people, Hanchard discusses how marginalization is reinforced in modern politics, and why these contradictions need to be fully examined if the dynamics of democracy are to be truly understood. Hanchard identifies continuities of discriminatory citizenship from classical Athens to the present and looks at how democratic institutions have promoted undemocratic ideas and practices. The longest-standing modern democracies--France, Britain, and the United States—profited from slave labor, empire, and colonialism, much like their Athenian predecessor. Hanchard follows these patterns through the Enlightenment and to the states and political thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and he examines how early political scientists, including Woodrow Wilson and his contemporaries, devised what Hanchard has characterized as "racial regimes" to maintain the political and economic privileges of dominant groups at the expense of subordinated ones. Exploring how democracies reconcile political inequality and equality, Hanchard debates the thorny question of the conditions under which democracies have created and maintained barriers to political membership. Showing the ways that race, gender, nationality, and other criteria have determined a person's status in political life, The Spectre ofRace offers important historical context for how democracy generates political difference and inequality.

However divergent their analyses may be in other ways, some prominent anti-capitalist critics have remained critical of contemporary debates over reparative justice for groups historically oppressed and marginalized on the basis of race, gender, sexual identity, sexual preference, and/or ability, arguing that the most these struggles can hope to produce is a more diversity-friendly capital. Meanwhile, scholars of gender and sexuality as well as race and ethnic studies maintain that, by elevating the socioeconomic above other logics of domination, anti-capitalist thought fails to acknowledge specific forms and experiences of subjugation. The thinkers and activists who appear in Totality Inside Out reject this divisive logic altogether. Instead, they aim for a more expansive analysis of our contemporary moment to uncover connected sites of political struggle over racial and economic justice, materialist feminist and queer critique, climate change, and aesthetic value. The re-imagined account of capitalist totality that appears in this volume illuminates the material interlinkages between discrepant social phenomena, forms of oppression, and group histories, offering multiple entry points for readers who are interested in exploring how capitalism shapes integral relations within the social whole. Contributors: Brent Ryan Bellamy, Sarah Brouillette, Sarika Chandra, Chris Chen, Joshua Clover, Tim Kreiner, Arthur Scarritt, Zoe Sutherland, Marina Vishmidt

In Racism in a Racial Democracy, France Winddance Twine asks why Brazilians, particularly Afro-Brazilians, continue to have faith in Brazil's "racial democracy" in the face of pervasive racism in all spheres of Brazilian life. Through a detailed ethnography, Twine provides a cultural analysis of the everyday discursive and material practices that sustain and naturalize white supremacy. This is the first ethnographic study of racism in southeastern Brazil to place the practices of upwardly mobile Afro-Brazilians at the center of analysis. Based on extensive field research and more than fifty life histories with Afro- and Euro-Brazilians, this book analyzes how Brazilians conceptualize and respond to racial disparities. Twine illuminates the obstacles Brazilian activists face when attempting to generate grassroots support for an antiracist movement among the majority of working class Brazilians. Anyone interested in racism and antiracism in Latin America will find this book compelling.

Time is at the forefront of contemporary scholarly inquiry across the natural sciences and the humanities. Yet the social sciences have remained substantially isolated from time-related concerns. This book argues that time should be a key part of social theory and focuses concern upon issues which have emerged as central to an understanding of today's social world. Through her analysis of time Barbara Adam shows that our contemporary social theories are firmly embedded in Newtonian science and classical dualistic philosophy. She exposes these classical frameworks of thought as inadequate to the task of conceptualizing our contemporary world of standardized time, computers, nuclear power and global telecommunications.

Cedric Robinson – political theorist, historian, and activist – was one of the greatest black radical thinkers of the twentieth century. In this powerful work, the first major book to tell his story, Joshua Myers shows how Robinson’s work interrogated the foundations of western political thought, modern capitalism, and changing meanings of race. Tracing the course of Robinson’s journey from his early days as an agitator in the 1960s to his publication of such seminal works as Black Marxism, Myers frames Robinson’s mission as aiming to understand and practice opposition to “the terms of order.” In so doing, Robinson excavated the Black Radical tradition as a form of resistance that imagined that life on wholly different terms was possible. In the era of Black Lives Matter, that resistance is as necessary as ever, and Robinson’s contribution only gains in importance. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to learn more about it.