Stephen Steinberg offers a bold challenge to prevailing thought on race and ethnicity in American society. In a penetrating critique of the famed race relations paradigm, he asks why a paradigm invented four decades before the Civil Rights Revolution still dominates both academic and popular discourses four decades after that revolution. On race, Steinberg argues that even the language of "race relations" obscures the structural basis of racial hierarchy and inequality. Generations of sociologists have unwittingly practiced a "white sociology" that reflects white interests and viewpoints. What happens, he asks, when we foreground the interests and viewpoints of the victims, rather than the perpetrators, of racial oppression? On ethnicity, Steinberg turns the tables and shows that the early sociologists who predicted ultimate assimilation have been vindicated by history. The evidence is overwhelming that the new immigrants, including Asians and most Latinos, are following in the footsteps of past immigrants—footsteps leading into the melting pot. But even today, there is the black exception. The end result is a dual melting pot—one for peoples of African descent and the other for everybody else. Race Relations: A Critique cuts through layers of academic jargon to reveal unsettling truths that call into question the nature and future of American nationality.

From former SNL "Weekend Update" host and legendary stand-up Colin Quinn comes a controversial and laugh-out-loud investigation into cultural and ethnic stereotypes. Colin Quinn has noticed a trend during his decades on the road-that Americans' increasing political correctness and sensitivity have forced us to tiptoe around the subjects of race and ethnicity altogether. Colin wants to know: What are we all so afraid of? Every ethnic group has differences, everyone brings something different to the table, and this diversity should be celebrated, not denied. So why has acknowledging these cultural differences become so taboo? In The Coloring Book, Colin, a native New Yorker, tackles this issue head-on while taking us on a trip through the insane melting pot of 1970s Brooklyn, the many, many dive bars of 1980s Manhattan, the comedy scene of the 1990s, and post-9/11 America. He mixes his incredibly candid and hilarious personal experiences with no-holds-barred observations to definitively decide, at least in his own mind, which stereotypes are funny, which stereotypes are based on truths, which have become totally distorted over time, and which are actually offensive to each group, and why. As it pokes holes in the tapestry of fear that has overtaken discussions about race, The Coloring Book serves as an antidote to our paralysis when it comes to laughing at ourselves . . . and others.

Publisher Description

A comparative study of slavery in Brazil and the United States, first published in 1971, looking at the demographic, economic, and cultural factors that allowed black people in Brazil to gain economically and retain their African culture, while the U.S. pursued a course of racial segregation.

This book is an essential resource for anyone who wants to understand race in America, drawing on research from a variety of fields to answer frequently asked questions regarding race relations, systemic racism, and racial inequality. This work is part of a series that uses evidence-based documentation to examine the veracity of claims and beliefs about high-profile issues in American culture and politics. This particular volume examines the true state of race relations and racial inequality in the United States, drawing on empirical research in the hard sciences and social sciences to answer frequently asked questions regarding race and inequality. The book refutes falsehoods, misunderstandings, and exaggerations surrounding these topics and confirms the validity of other assertions. Assembling this empirical research into one accessible place allows readers to better understand the scholarly evidence on such high-interest topics as white privilege, racial bias in criminal justice, media bias, housing segregation, educational inequality, disparities in employment, racial stereotypes, and personal attitudes about race and ethnicity in America. The authors draw from scholarly research in biology, genetics, medicine, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and economics (among many other fields) to answer these questions, and in doing so they provide readers with the information to enter any conversation about American race relations in the 21st century as informed citizens.

Charles N. Hunter, one of North Carolina's outstanding black reformers, was born a slave in Raleigh around 1851, and he lived there until his death in 1931. As public school teacher, journalist, and historian, Hunter devoted his long life to improving opportunities for blacks. A political activist, but never a radical, he skillfully used his journalistic abilities and his personal contacts with whites to publicize the problems and progress of his race. He urged blacks to ally themselves with the best of the white leaders, and he constantly reminded whites that their treatment of his race ran counter to their professed religious beliefs and the basic tenets of the American liberal tradition. By carefully balancing his efforts, Hunter helped to establish a spirit of passive protest against racial injustice. John Haley's compelling book, largely based on Hunter's voluminous papers, affords a unique opportunity to view race relations in North Carolina through the eyes of a black man. It also provides the first continuous survey of the black experience in the state from the end of the Civil War to the Great Depression, an account that critiques the belief that race relations were better in North Carolina than in other southern states.

This deeply researched, clearly written book is a history of black society and its relations with whites in the Bahamas from the close of the American Revolution to emancipation. Whittington B. Johnson examines the communities developed by free, bonded, and mixed-race blacks on the islands as British colonists and American loyalists unsuccessfully tried to establish a plantation economy. The author explores how relations between the races developed civilly in this region, contrasting it with the harsher and more violent experiences of other Caribbean islands and the American South. Interpreting church documents and Colonial Office papers in a new light, Johnson presents a more favorable conclusion than previously advanced about the conditions endured by victims of the African Diaspora and by Creoles in the Bahama Islands. He makes use of an impressive and important body of archival and secondary research. Race Relations in the Bahamas will be a book of great interest to southern historians, historians of slave societies and black communities, scholars of race relations, and general readers.

Where we stand now -- The creation of race -- An interracial fight for freedom -- A step toward equality -- Separate and unequal -- Renewing the battle for equal rights -- A color-blind society? -- The post-racial illusion -- Continuing the good fight.

This book brings together internationally known scholars from a wide range of disciplines and theoretical traditions, all of whom have made significant contributions to the field of race and ethnic relations. As well as identifying important and persistent points of controversy, the collection reveals a complementary and multifaceted approach to theorisation. The theories represented include contributions from the perspective of sociology. These range from the established perspectives of Marx and Weber through to the more recent interventions of rational choice theory, symbolic interactionism and identity structure analysis.