The definitive book on how systemic racism in America really works, revealing the vast and often hidden network of interconnected policies, practices, and beliefs that combine to devastate Black lives In recent years, condemnations of racism in America have echoed from the streets to corporate boardrooms. At the same time, politicians and commentators fiercely debate racism’s very existence. And so, our conversations about racial inequalities remain muddled. In Metaracism, pioneering scholar Tricia Rose cuts through the noise with a bracing and invaluable new account of what systemic racism actually is, how it works, and how we can fight back. She reveals how—from housing to education to criminal justice—an array of policies and practices connect and interact to produce an even more devastating “metaracism” far worse than the sum of its parts. While these systemic connections can be difficult to see—and are often portrayed as “color-blind”—again and again they function to disproportionately contain, exploit, and punish Black people. By helping us to comprehend systemic racism’s inner workings and destructive impacts, Metaracism shows us also how to break free—and how to create a more just America for us all.

The black/white gaps in income, education, and wealth are expanding. Prisons are crowded with black men. There is an increasing concentration of urban poverty. While individuals and communities reject biological determinism and find bigotry offensive, structural inequalities remain. Why? Addressing this fundamental question, Carter Wilson focuses on the elusive dynamics of contemporary racism. Wilson documents the emergence of metaracism, a deeply embedded bias fueled by economic insecurity, entrenched (yet no longer publicly accepted) stereotypes, and shifts in public policy. He illustrates his argument with discussions of a broad range of policy issues. His provocative analysis offers new insights on both the roots of racism and its persistence today.

In this addition to the SAGE Series on Race and Ethnic Relations, Carter A. Wilson provides an interpretive history of racism, from antiquity to the present day.

Probes the deep psychological and historical embedments of racism in Western civilization and provides a pessimistic view of future reform

Explorations of cultural change in the former Soviet bloc

Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Reflecting on a Set of Personal and Political Criteria 1 Pt. 1 Expanding the Scope of Sadomasochism Ch. 1 Exploring Sadomasochism in the American Context 15 Ch. 2 Defining a Basic Dynamic: Parodoxes[sic] at the Heart of Sadomasochism 43 Ch. 3 Combining the Insights of Existentialism and Psychoanalysis: Why Sadomasochism? 69 Pt. 2 Sadomasochism in Its Social Settings Ch. 4 Employing Chains of Command: Sadomasochism and the Workplace 93 Ch. 5 Engendering Sadomasochism: Dominance, Subordination, and the Contaminated World of Patriarchy 125 Ch. 6 Creating Enemies in Everyday Life: Following the Example of Others 155 Ch. 7 A Theoretical Finale 187 Epilogue 215 Notes 223 Index 231

Contours of African American Politics chronicles the systematic study of African American politics and its subsequent recognition as an established field of scholarly inquiry. African American politics emanates from the demands of the prolonged struggle for black liberation and empowerment. Hence, the study of African American politics has sought to track, codify, and analyse the struggle that has been mounted, and to understand the historic and changing political status of African Americans within American society. This two-volume set presents a selection of scholarship on African American politics as it appeared in The National Political Science Review from its initial launch in 1989 to the spring of 2009. Represented are contributions from some of the leading scholars of African American politics, who have helped to establish and sustain the field. The volumes are organised around themes that derive from the unfolding real-life drama of African American politics and its subsequent scholarly treatment. The result is a window into the political efforts that meld the historically disparate strands of black political expressions into a reconstructed and strategically nimble, electoral-based mass mobilisation necessary for optimising the impact of the African American vote. Sections in the volumes also chronicle the evolution of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists as a professional organisation. The two volumes illuminate a pivotal epoch in black political empowerment and provide a context for the future of black politics.

In the past, African American aspirations for political offi ce were assumed to be limited to areas with sizeable black population bases. By and large, black candidates have rarely been successful in statewide or national elections. This has been attributed to several factors: limited resources available to African American candidates, or identifi cation with a black liberationist ideological thrust. Other factors have been a relatively small and spatially concentrated primary support base of black voters, and the persistent resistance of many white voters to support black candidates. For these reasons, the possibility of black candidates winning elections to national offi ce was presumably just a dream. Conventional wisdom conceded a virtual cap on both the possible number of black elected officials and the level of elective offi ce to which they could ascend. But objective political analysis has not always made sufficient allowances for the more universal phenomenon of individual political ambitions. Th e contributors to this volume explore the ways ambitious individuals identifi ed and seized upon strategies that are expanding the boundaries of African American electoral politics. This volume is anchored by a symposium that focuses on new possibiities in African American politics. Both the electoral contests of 2006 and the Barack Obama presidential campaign represent an emergent dynamic in American electoral politics. Analysts are beginning to agree that the contours of social change now make the electoral successes of black candidates who are perceived as ideologically and culturally mainstream increasingly likely. The debate captured in this volume will likely inspire further scholarly inquiry into the changing nature and dimensions of the larger dynamic of race in American politics and the subsequent changing political fortunes of African American candidates.

A formidable critical project on the limits of antiracist philosophy. Exploring anxieties raised by Atlantic slavery in radical enlightenment literature concerned about political unfreedom in Europe, Metaracial argues that Hegel's philosophy assuages these anxieties for the left. Interpreting Hegel beside Rousseau, Kant, Mary Shelley, and Marx, Terada traces Hegel's transposition of racial hierarchy into a hierarchy of stances toward reality. By doing so, she argues, Hegel is simultaneously antiracist and antiblack. In dialogue with Black Studies, psychoanalysis, and critical theory, Metaracial offers a genealogy of the limits of antiracism.

Group identifications famously pose the problem of destructive rhetoric and action against others. Cynthia Burack brings together the theory work of women of color and the tools of psychoanalysis to examine the effects of group collaborations for social justice and progressive politics. This juxtaposition illuminates some assumptions about race and equality encoded in psychoanalysis. Burack's discursive analysis suggests the positive, identity-affirming aspects of group relational life for African American women. One analytic response to groups emphasizes the dangers of these identifications and exhorts people to abandon or transcend them for their own good and for the good of others who may be harmed by group-based forms of cultural or material violence. Another response understands that people feel a need for group identifications and asks how they may be made more resistant to malignant group-based discourse and action. What can black feminist thought teach scholars and democratic citizens about groups? Burack shows how the rhetoric of black feminism models reparative, rather than destructive, forms of group dialogue and action. Although it may be impossible to eliminate group identifications that provide much of the impetus for bias and violence, she argues, we can encourage more progressive forms of leadership, solidarity, and coalition politics.