Racist America: Roots, Current Realities and Future Reparations (Paperback)

by Joe R. Feagin (Author) "The year is 1787, the place Philadelphia..." (more)
Key Phrases: antiblack oppression, racist continuum, antiblack images, United States, African Americans, Supreme Court (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Feagin's voluminous, relentless book testifies to both the strengths and the flaws of applying a sociological approach to the intricate issues of racism in America. Most social scientists, according to this sociologist at the University of Florida (White Racism, etc.) and president of the American Sociological Association, see racism "as something tacked on to an otherwise healthy American society." But Feagin contends that the system embeds racism at the core, from the Constitution to the legacy of slavery and segregation in retarding black economic advancement. He argues aptly that color-blind ideology "provides a veneer of liberality" for those unwilling to recognize how race has shaped America, while those who lump blacks with white immigrant groups ignore the effects of racial discrimination. But Feagin's approach surely sacrifices complexity. Are "racist pressures against interracial marriage" solely the product of white racism? If achievement tests are so biased toward the white middle class, then why do some Asian immigrants do well on them? Feagin calls for a large-scale educational campaign to move whites to confront "the reality of the pain that their system of racism has caused" and a new constitutional convention to incorporate "the group interests and rights of all Americans of color." He also calls for individual and group reparations for blacks. (But how exactly would a "black community" be determined?) Feagin doesn't engage those who argue that class-based remedies may be better than race-based onesAanother flaw in a book full of strong yet poorly articulated arguments.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews
A sometimes searing indictment of American racial practices.Sociologist Feagin (White Racism, not reviewed) traces the development of American racism to its roots in Europe. Ideologically, race was not a major consideration in human endeavors until the beginning of the European slave trade in the 1400s, Feagin tells us. But some 300 years later, it had grown full-blown and become a major cornerstone of intellectual thought--dominated by such thinkers as Locke, Kant, and Hegel, and by the Frenchman Joseph Arthur de Gobineau. All of these harbored anti-black views to varying degrees, including the curious natural-law notion that blacks somehow were born to be slaves. Much of this 18th-century twaddle was absorbed by our Founding Fathers, especially by Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison. Feagin also examines Reconstruction, the lynchings of the late–19th and early–20th centuries, the Civil Rights era, and the post–Civil Rights period. As we enter a point in the new millennium where the white population is beginning to shrink, Feagin points out that less than half the population of America's four largest cities (New York, Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago) is white. This and other factors lead Feagin to call for an international view of civil rights (i.e., one in which all are entitled to equal concern because all are human beings and not members of this or that state or tribe). Feagin, who is avowedly influenced by Franz Fanon and Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), is at his overwrought best when he is in historical pursuit of the roots of racism. Perhaps because it is something not readily fresh on the mind, it is a matter of more than idle curiosity what Benjamin Franklin and James Madison thought about whiteness. On the other hand, matters such as affirmative action and reparations are too widely discussed and familiar to make Feagin's discussion of them very interesting or fresh.A useful study, even for those who are not guilt-ridden. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (September 30, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415925320
• ISBN-13: 978-0415925327
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #489,771 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful Academic Exposition Of America's Racial History, May 12, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Racist America : Roots, Current Realities and Future Reparations (Hardcover)

One reviewer practically foamed at the mouth ranting how Marxist and anti-White the author was so I expected some stereotypical book in which Whites are bashed, uniformly portrayed as evil, and the cause of all life's problems. Instead, I found an articulate and thoughtful academic approach to the historical roots of American racism, interesting anecdotes about systemic racism's "current realities" in everyday practice and possible anti-racist strategies and solutions. Feagin's ideological sympathies are clearly with the victims of racism but not, I think, to the extent that it distorts history or unfairly attacks one race. The book isn't about "attacking" one group unless you define attacking as recounting historical facts or current reality. So why did the other reviewer find it so offensive? The title - Racist America - implies to the superficial reader that all (White) Americans are racist and the subject - racism - is unpleasant and embarassing to the superficial reader ("Why not forget the bad and accentuate the positive?"). If you're reading a book, for example, on cancer, or poverty, or famine, you don't get angry, thrown down the book and say, "I don't have cancer. Most people aren't poor. Famines are rare," you recognize that that is the subject of the book. This book does not condemn America but its focus is on our national original sin and its enough to make anyone squeamish.

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Courage to Tell It Like It Is, January 8, 2002

By A Customer

If you're a racist, you'll hate this book. If you're an equality-loving person of goodwill who wants to understand how and why racism operates in America, you'll find this book to be extremely valuable.

This is a bold, provocative, innovative, and insightful book. Professor Feagin walks us through the history of racism from its roots in Europe and colonial America to its current-day manifestations. He shows just how thoroughly racism has always permeated life in America since the anti-black views of America's Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and James Madison. Feagin also examines Reconstruction, the lynchings of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, the Jim Crow racism of the modern Civil Rights era, and the new "color-blind" racism of the post-Civil Rights period.

Professor Feagin lays bare the economic, ideological, and political structure of American racism. In so doing he develops an anti-racist theory rooted not only in the latest empirical data but also in the current reality of racism in the U.S.

This book is quite an eye-opener!

17 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important reading., August 31, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Racist America : Roots, Current Realities and Future Reparations (Hardcover)

This is a really important book for white people in the United States to read. It is a history of their country they are NOT taught and retaught in their daily lives. It is written well and I would love to have one in my purse at all times to give out as needed.