Toward a political philosophy of race / Falguni A. Sheth.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sheth, Falguni A., 1968-

Series:

SUNY series, philosophy and race

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Race discrimination--United States.

Race discrimination.

Philosophy.

United States.

Race discrimination--United States--Philosophy.

Racism--United States.

Racism.

United States--Race relations.

Race relations.

Physical Description:

xiii, 256 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Albany : SUNY Press, [2009]

Summary:

Timely, controversial, and incisive, Toward a Political Philosophy of Race looks uncompromisingly at how a liberal society enables racism and other forms of discrimination. Drawing on the examples of the internment of U.S. citizens and residents of Japanese descent, of Muslim men and women in the contemporary United States, and of Asian Indians at the turn of the twentieth century, Falguni A. Sheth argues that racial discrimination and divisions are not accidents in the history of liberal societies. Race, she contends, is a process embedded in a range of legal technologies that produce racialized populations who are divided against other groups. Moving past discussions of racial and social justice as abstract concepts, she reveals the playing out of race, racialization of groups, and legal frameworks within concrete historical frameworks.

Contents:

Introduction: If You Don't Do Theory, Theory Will Do You 1

1 The Technology of Race and the Logics of Exclusion: The Unruly, Naturalization, and Violence 21

First Dimension: Taming the Unruly 26

Second Dimension: Naturalizing the Unruly 28

Race as a Tool for Sovereign Power: Dividing Populations 29

Enframing Race: Vulnerability and Violence 35

2 The Violence of Law: Sovereign Power, Vulnerable Populations, and Race 41

Law, Violence, and Undecidability 42

Sovereign Power 47

Unruly and Vulnerable Populations 49

The Racialization of a Population 51

The Unruly and the Vulnerable Manifested as Categories of Law: Immigrants, Aliens, Enemies 56

3 The Unruly: Strangeness, Madness, and Race 65

Strangeness 67

Huntington and Rawls: Islam, Madness, and the Menace to Liberalism 74

Difference, Madness, and Race 78

Liberal Hegemony and Heterogeneous Populations 81

4 The Newest Unruly Threat: Muslim Men and Women 87

The Racializing and Outcasting of Muslims in the United States 88

Culture, Heterogeneity, and the Foreigner: Unruly Women 95

5 Producing Race: Naturalizing the Exception Through the Rule of Law 111

Exceptions and the Rule of Law 113

Constitutional Rights: Political? Human? 117

6 Border-Populations: Boundary, Memory, and Moral Conscience 129

The Third Term: Pariah Populations as a Border-Guard 130

Pariahs, Border-Populations, and Moral Gauges: The Example of Black Americans 136

Furthering State Interests: Dividing Populations Against Each Other 141

Concealing and Unconcealing: Multiple Border-Guards and Outsiders 143

7 Technologies of Race and the Racialization of Immigrants: The Case of Early Twentieth-Century Asian Indians in North America 147

The Great "Hindu" Migration 148

Political Resistance or Insurgency? 150

Racialization 154

Invisibility 157

Conclusion: Toward a Political Philosophy of Race 167.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-247) and index.

ISBN:

9780791493977

0791493970

9780791493984

0791493989

OCLC:

226966547