Race and the politics of the exception : equality, sovereignty, and American democracy / Utz McKnight.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McKnight, Utz Lars.

Series:

Routledge series on identity politics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States--Race relations--Political aspects.

United States.

Race relations.

United States--Politics and government.

Politics and government.

African Americans--Politics and government.

African Americans.

Racism--United States--History.

Racism.

History.

Race discrimination--United States.

Race discrimination.

United States--Race relations.

Physical Description:

249 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013.

Summary:

Group identities have been an important part of political life in America since the founding of the republic. For most of this long history, the central challenge for activists, politicians, and scholars concerned with the quality of U.S. democracy was the struggle to bring the treatment of ethnic and racial minorities and women in line with the creedal values spelled out in the nation's charters of freedom. We are now several decades from the key moments of the twentieth century when social movements fractured America's system of ascriptive hierarchy. The gains from these movements have been substantial. Women now move freely in all realms of civil society, hold high elective offices, and constitute more than 50 percent of the workforce. Most African-Americans have now attained middle class status, work in integrated job sits, and live in suburbs, Finally, people of color from nations in Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean now constitute the majority of America's immigration pool. In the midst of all of these positive changes, however, glaring inequalities between groups persist. Indeed, ethnic and racial minorities remain far more likely to be undereducated, unemployed, and incarcerated than their counterparts who identity, as white. Similarly, both violence and work place discrimination against women remain rampant in U.S. society. The Routledge series on identity politics features works that seek to understand the tension between the great strides our society has made in promoting equality between groups and the residual effects of the ascriptive hierarchies in which the old order was rooted. Some of the core questions that the series will address are: how meaningful art the traditional ethnic, gender, racial, and sexual identities to our understanding of inequality in the present historical moment? Do these identities remain important bases for group mobilization in American politics? To what extent can we expect the state to continue to work for a more level playing field among groups? Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I Defining Exceptions to Equality

1 The Racist and the Elite 17

2 The New Normal 36

Part II Defining Racial Sovereignty

3 The Experience of Race 51

4 Race and Community 66

5 History and Politics 91

Part III Black Politics

6 Slavery and Its Aftermath 119

7 Jim Crow 159

8 Integration 195.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780415827607

0415827604

OCLC:

816564541