Jodi Melamed
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816674244
- eISBN:
- 9781452947426
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816674244.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter presents Gunnar Myrdal’s novel An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944) to illustrate the emergence of race novels and the values ascribed to literature about ...
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This chapter presents Gunnar Myrdal’s novel An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944) to illustrate the emergence of race novels and the values ascribed to literature about racial liberalism. Throughout the Cold War, race novels were as the primary tool of antiracism movements for discussing the notion of racial liberalism and to gain the support of white Americans against racial discrimination. This satirized the social and professional context of different race relations by dramatizing the failure of white Americans to help promote racial equality and the notion of the possibility that racial liberalism could be attained through philanthropy, academia, government, media, and race relations organizations.Less
This chapter presents Gunnar Myrdal’s novel An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944) to illustrate the emergence of race novels and the values ascribed to literature about racial liberalism. Throughout the Cold War, race novels were as the primary tool of antiracism movements for discussing the notion of racial liberalism and to gain the support of white Americans against racial discrimination. This satirized the social and professional context of different race relations by dramatizing the failure of white Americans to help promote racial equality and the notion of the possibility that racial liberalism could be attained through philanthropy, academia, government, media, and race relations organizations.
Jodi Melamed
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816674244
- eISBN:
- 9781452947426
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816674244.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter discusses geopolitical aspects of the modern racial system in the post-World War II era. Antiracist and liberal-capitalist modernity became rampant after World War II in the form of ...
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This chapter discusses geopolitical aspects of the modern racial system in the post-World War II era. Antiracist and liberal-capitalist modernity became rampant after World War II in the form of state-recognized U.S. antiracism movements such as racial liberalism, liberal multiculturalism, and neoliberal multiculturalism. These movements influenced the formation of the state, from the period of Cold War expansionism to the period of contemporary neoliberalism by using literature as a tool for Americans to describe, teach, and situate themselves with respect to racial difference. The book stresses the importance of literary studies for producing, transmitting, and describing the violence of race-liberal orders that inspired the antiracism movements.Less
This chapter discusses geopolitical aspects of the modern racial system in the post-World War II era. Antiracist and liberal-capitalist modernity became rampant after World War II in the form of state-recognized U.S. antiracism movements such as racial liberalism, liberal multiculturalism, and neoliberal multiculturalism. These movements influenced the formation of the state, from the period of Cold War expansionism to the period of contemporary neoliberalism by using literature as a tool for Americans to describe, teach, and situate themselves with respect to racial difference. The book stresses the importance of literary studies for producing, transmitting, and describing the violence of race-liberal orders that inspired the antiracism movements.
Eric Schickler
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691153872
- eISBN:
- 9781400880973
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691153872.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter traces the mass-level story of civil rights realignment among whites. The conventional understanding is that New Deal economic liberalism and racial liberalism were not related among ...
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This chapter traces the mass-level story of civil rights realignment among whites. The conventional understanding is that New Deal economic liberalism and racial liberalism were not related among whites until the 1960s or perhaps the late 1950s. The chapter shows that among northern whites, both Democratic partisanship and economic liberalism were linked to support for the major civil rights initiatives on the agenda in the late 1930s and 1940s. Although partisanship was uncorrelated with civil rights views among southern whites, economic conservatism was related to more conservative civil rights views. This connection between economic and racial conservatism in the South provided fertile ground for the GOP's eventual “southern strategy.” Ultimately, economically liberal northern Democrats provided much stronger support for most of the leading civil rights policy initiatives on the agenda than did economically conservative Republicans.Less
This chapter traces the mass-level story of civil rights realignment among whites. The conventional understanding is that New Deal economic liberalism and racial liberalism were not related among whites until the 1960s or perhaps the late 1950s. The chapter shows that among northern whites, both Democratic partisanship and economic liberalism were linked to support for the major civil rights initiatives on the agenda in the late 1930s and 1940s. Although partisanship was uncorrelated with civil rights views among southern whites, economic conservatism was related to more conservative civil rights views. This connection between economic and racial conservatism in the South provided fertile ground for the GOP's eventual “southern strategy.” Ultimately, economically liberal northern Democrats provided much stronger support for most of the leading civil rights policy initiatives on the agenda than did economically conservative Republicans.
Mark Brilliant
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199845392
- eISBN:
- 9780199365104
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199845392.003.0014
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century, Political History
This chapter taps California’s civil rights history as a case study for recasting the disparaging view of racial liberalism presented in much of the recent "long" civil rights movement ...
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This chapter taps California’s civil rights history as a case study for recasting the disparaging view of racial liberalism presented in much of the recent "long" civil rights movement historiography. It begins by defining and linking New Deal liberalism to racial liberalism, viewing the former as an extension of, rather than break from, the latter. It then sketches the leading litigation and legislation priorities and pursuits of racial liberals in California from the 1940s through the early 1960s, arguing that many of these initiatives reflected a robust, if not radical, civil rights reform agenda on behalf of both racial and economic inequality, which the Cold War did little to disrupt or diminish. Finally, this essay make the case for viewing racial liberals as savvy, strategic, and pragmatic actors who prioritized their civil rights decision making based on a tactical sense of what was possible in particular moments and venues.Less
This chapter taps California’s civil rights history as a case study for recasting the disparaging view of racial liberalism presented in much of the recent "long" civil rights movement historiography. It begins by defining and linking New Deal liberalism to racial liberalism, viewing the former as an extension of, rather than break from, the latter. It then sketches the leading litigation and legislation priorities and pursuits of racial liberals in California from the 1940s through the early 1960s, arguing that many of these initiatives reflected a robust, if not radical, civil rights reform agenda on behalf of both racial and economic inequality, which the Cold War did little to disrupt or diminish. Finally, this essay make the case for viewing racial liberals as savvy, strategic, and pragmatic actors who prioritized their civil rights decision making based on a tactical sense of what was possible in particular moments and venues.
Gregory S. Jay
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190687229
- eISBN:
- 9780190687250
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190687229.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
The introduction argues that a tradition of liberal white race fiction has been a key component of American literary history. It surveys scholarship defining “racial liberalism” and “racial ...
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The introduction argues that a tradition of liberal white race fiction has been a key component of American literary history. It surveys scholarship defining “racial liberalism” and “racial capitalism” and considers their application to literary analysis and concludes with summaries of the book’s chapters. Summarizing the common features of these novels, the introduction explains how they used a variety of literary devices, struggled to criticize racism, called for social and political change, and promoted liberal philosophies of freedom and equality. Empathy, sympathy, and an appeal to the emotions of readers are essential features of each book, moreover, for liberal race fiction imagines that changing how we feel about racial injustice will motivate us to do something about it.Less
The introduction argues that a tradition of liberal white race fiction has been a key component of American literary history. It surveys scholarship defining “racial liberalism” and “racial capitalism” and considers their application to literary analysis and concludes with summaries of the book’s chapters. Summarizing the common features of these novels, the introduction explains how they used a variety of literary devices, struggled to criticize racism, called for social and political change, and promoted liberal philosophies of freedom and equality. Empathy, sympathy, and an appeal to the emotions of readers are essential features of each book, moreover, for liberal race fiction imagines that changing how we feel about racial injustice will motivate us to do something about it.
Karen R. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479880096
- eISBN:
- 9781479803637
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479880096.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
This introductory chapter illustrates the political and spatial rift between the blacks and whites in early-twentieth-century Detroit, and the ideologies that would eventually shape northern racial ...
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This introductory chapter illustrates the political and spatial rift between the blacks and whites in early-twentieth-century Detroit, and the ideologies that would eventually shape northern racial liberalism and the implications it holds for both sides of the racial divide. Detroit makes an ideal setting for study, as it occupies an important place in the political imagination of the United States as an extreme example of the fortunes and failures of northern industrial cities. This portrait has always had a racial cast. When the city was largely white, its working class was celebrated for its affluence; now that Detroit is majority-black, its population is maligned for its impoverishment.Less
This introductory chapter illustrates the political and spatial rift between the blacks and whites in early-twentieth-century Detroit, and the ideologies that would eventually shape northern racial liberalism and the implications it holds for both sides of the racial divide. Detroit makes an ideal setting for study, as it occupies an important place in the political imagination of the United States as an extreme example of the fortunes and failures of northern industrial cities. This portrait has always had a racial cast. When the city was largely white, its working class was celebrated for its affluence; now that Detroit is majority-black, its population is maligned for its impoverishment.
Ellen D. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157825
- eISBN:
- 9781400848874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157825.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines how a a national panic over a perceived escalation in youth criminality surfaced in the early 1940s, which was triggered by the social transformations of wartime. For Chinese in ...
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This chapter examines how a a national panic over a perceived escalation in youth criminality surfaced in the early 1940s, which was triggered by the social transformations of wartime. For Chinese in the United States, the issue of juvenile delinquency became an important means through which to stipulate their race and citizenship imperatives after World War II. Chinatown leaders adopted a bifurcated strategy that reflected the ongoing tension between sameness and difference under racial liberalism. In one direction, community managers argued that juvenile delinquency was as much a problem for the Chinese as for other Americans. They stressed their right to state resources to stamp out youth crime as equal and deserving members of the polity.Less
This chapter examines how a a national panic over a perceived escalation in youth criminality surfaced in the early 1940s, which was triggered by the social transformations of wartime. For Chinese in the United States, the issue of juvenile delinquency became an important means through which to stipulate their race and citizenship imperatives after World War II. Chinatown leaders adopted a bifurcated strategy that reflected the ongoing tension between sameness and difference under racial liberalism. In one direction, community managers argued that juvenile delinquency was as much a problem for the Chinese as for other Americans. They stressed their right to state resources to stamp out youth crime as equal and deserving members of the polity.
Karen R. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479880096
- eISBN:
- 9781479803637
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479880096.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
This chapter describes the formation of northern racial liberalism and of black responses to this new racial ideology. Northern racial liberalism emerged alongside the beginning of the First Great ...
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This chapter describes the formation of northern racial liberalism and of black responses to this new racial ideology. Northern racial liberalism emerged alongside the beginning of the First Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the urban North, and subsequently developed as migration reshaped the city's housing market and racial geography. This ideology also coincided with a significant change in the city's white leadership, and is characterized by the growing power and popularity of urban reform. Urban reformers provided a language for explaining stratification and developed institutions for managing urban populations that white leaders then used, both ideologically and practically, to handle the influx of black newcomers. Finally, northern racial liberalism emerged as a response to an increasingly vocal and politically organized African American minority that was actively debating the meanings of full racial justice and challenging the racial hierarchies of the North.Less
This chapter describes the formation of northern racial liberalism and of black responses to this new racial ideology. Northern racial liberalism emerged alongside the beginning of the First Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the urban North, and subsequently developed as migration reshaped the city's housing market and racial geography. This ideology also coincided with a significant change in the city's white leadership, and is characterized by the growing power and popularity of urban reform. Urban reformers provided a language for explaining stratification and developed institutions for managing urban populations that white leaders then used, both ideologically and practically, to handle the influx of black newcomers. Finally, northern racial liberalism emerged as a response to an increasingly vocal and politically organized African American minority that was actively debating the meanings of full racial justice and challenging the racial hierarchies of the North.
Karen R. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479880096
- eISBN:
- 9781479803637
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479880096.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
In the wake of the Civil War, many white northern leaders supported race-neutral laws and anti-discrimination statutes. These positions helped amplify the distinctions they drew between their ...
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In the wake of the Civil War, many white northern leaders supported race-neutral laws and anti-discrimination statutes. These positions helped amplify the distinctions they drew between their political economic system, which they saw as forward-thinking in its promotion of free market capitalism, and the now vanquished southern system, which had been built on slavery. But this interest in legal race neutrality should not be mistaken for an effort to integrate northern African Americans into the state or society on an equal footing with whites. During the Great Migration, which brought tens of thousands of African Americans into Northern cities after World War I, white northern leaders faced new challenges from both white and African American activists and were pushed to manage race relations in a more formalized and proactive manner. The result was northern racial liberalism: the idea that all Americans, regardless of race, should be politically equal, but that the state cannot and indeed should not enforce racial equality by interfering with existing social or economic relations. This book examines the formulation, uses, and growing political importance of northern racial liberalism in Detroit between the two World Wars. It argues that racial inequality was built into the liberal state at its inception, rather than produced by antagonists of liberalism. The book shows that our current racial system—where race-neutral language coincides with extreme racial inequalities that appear natural rather than political—has a history that is deeply embedded in contemporary governmental systems and political economies.Less
In the wake of the Civil War, many white northern leaders supported race-neutral laws and anti-discrimination statutes. These positions helped amplify the distinctions they drew between their political economic system, which they saw as forward-thinking in its promotion of free market capitalism, and the now vanquished southern system, which had been built on slavery. But this interest in legal race neutrality should not be mistaken for an effort to integrate northern African Americans into the state or society on an equal footing with whites. During the Great Migration, which brought tens of thousands of African Americans into Northern cities after World War I, white northern leaders faced new challenges from both white and African American activists and were pushed to manage race relations in a more formalized and proactive manner. The result was northern racial liberalism: the idea that all Americans, regardless of race, should be politically equal, but that the state cannot and indeed should not enforce racial equality by interfering with existing social or economic relations. This book examines the formulation, uses, and growing political importance of northern racial liberalism in Detroit between the two World Wars. It argues that racial inequality was built into the liberal state at its inception, rather than produced by antagonists of liberalism. The book shows that our current racial system—where race-neutral language coincides with extreme racial inequalities that appear natural rather than political—has a history that is deeply embedded in contemporary governmental systems and political economies.
Charles W. Mills
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190245412
- eISBN:
- 9780190245450
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190245412.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Liberalism’s promise of equal rights has historically been denied to blacks and other people of color. Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism argues that rather than being ...
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Liberalism’s promise of equal rights has historically been denied to blacks and other people of color. Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism argues that rather than being irrelevant to the workings of self-conceived liberal polities today, this history of denial and its current legacy should be regarded as continuing to shape liberalism in fundamental ways. As feminists have conceptualized the dominant form of liberalism as a patriarchal liberalism, this book suggests seeing it as a racialized liberalism. Accordingly, the chapters look at racial liberalism, past and present: “white ignorance” as a guilty ignoring of reality that facilitates ongoing white racial domination; Immanuel Kant’s role as the most important liberal theorist of both personhood and sub-personhood; the centrality of racial exploitation to the economy of the United States; and the evasion of the realities of white supremacy and the need for corrective racial justice in John Rawls’s hugely influential “ideal theory” framing of the derivation of principles of social justice. Nonetheless, the book argues that a deracialized liberalism is both possible and desirable. But it will be necessary to reconstruct liberalism on a new foundation that self-consciously takes its unacknowledged racial history into account.Less
Liberalism’s promise of equal rights has historically been denied to blacks and other people of color. Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism argues that rather than being irrelevant to the workings of self-conceived liberal polities today, this history of denial and its current legacy should be regarded as continuing to shape liberalism in fundamental ways. As feminists have conceptualized the dominant form of liberalism as a patriarchal liberalism, this book suggests seeing it as a racialized liberalism. Accordingly, the chapters look at racial liberalism, past and present: “white ignorance” as a guilty ignoring of reality that facilitates ongoing white racial domination; Immanuel Kant’s role as the most important liberal theorist of both personhood and sub-personhood; the centrality of racial exploitation to the economy of the United States; and the evasion of the realities of white supremacy and the need for corrective racial justice in John Rawls’s hugely influential “ideal theory” framing of the derivation of principles of social justice. Nonetheless, the book argues that a deracialized liberalism is both possible and desirable. But it will be necessary to reconstruct liberalism on a new foundation that self-consciously takes its unacknowledged racial history into account.
Charles W. Mills
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190245412
- eISBN:
- 9780190245450
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190245412.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Liberalism is globally triumphant, and contemporary political debates either assume a liberal framework or take it as the main target. But in these debates, the historic racialization of liberalism ...
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Liberalism is globally triumphant, and contemporary political debates either assume a liberal framework or take it as the main target. But in these debates, the historic racialization of liberalism is rarely discussed. This chapter argues for the recognition of the “whiteness” of liberalism and political philosophy more generally, both in constructions of the canon and in the ignoring of racial justice as an issue. Correspondingly, it contends that there is a need to deracialize liberalism. The suggested strategy for accomplishing this goal is to adopt the “domination contract” as a superior “device of representation,” recover the obfuscated and sanitized past of white racial domination, and thereby expose the centrality of racial exploitation to the American polity and its implications for social justice.Less
Liberalism is globally triumphant, and contemporary political debates either assume a liberal framework or take it as the main target. But in these debates, the historic racialization of liberalism is rarely discussed. This chapter argues for the recognition of the “whiteness” of liberalism and political philosophy more generally, both in constructions of the canon and in the ignoring of racial justice as an issue. Correspondingly, it contends that there is a need to deracialize liberalism. The suggested strategy for accomplishing this goal is to adopt the “domination contract” as a superior “device of representation,” recover the obfuscated and sanitized past of white racial domination, and thereby expose the centrality of racial exploitation to the American polity and its implications for social justice.
Karen R. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479880096
- eISBN:
- 9781479803637
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479880096.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
This chapter explores the organizing victories spearheaded by black Detroiters that contributed to African Americans' increasing visibility and galvanized a local spirit of protest—an inclination ...
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This chapter explores the organizing victories spearheaded by black Detroiters that contributed to African Americans' increasing visibility and galvanized a local spirit of protest—an inclination toward “getting funny.” As African Americans became more assertive and confrontational in their fight for racial equality, white leaders responded by taking black concerns more seriously and addressing black demands more readily. Thus, struggles for equality and survival during the 1930s reshaped African Americans' orientation toward white city leaders, changed how those white leaders managed their relationships with African Americans, and shifted how white leaders thought about racial equality. White leaders' increasing embrace of racial liberalism was thus rooted in their responses to black residents' demands.Less
This chapter explores the organizing victories spearheaded by black Detroiters that contributed to African Americans' increasing visibility and galvanized a local spirit of protest—an inclination toward “getting funny.” As African Americans became more assertive and confrontational in their fight for racial equality, white leaders responded by taking black concerns more seriously and addressing black demands more readily. Thus, struggles for equality and survival during the 1930s reshaped African Americans' orientation toward white city leaders, changed how those white leaders managed their relationships with African Americans, and shifted how white leaders thought about racial equality. White leaders' increasing embrace of racial liberalism was thus rooted in their responses to black residents' demands.
Keith P. Feldman
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694501
- eISBN:
- 9781452950846
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694501.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Chapter One situates this entanglement in competing post-Holocaust discourses of racial expertise and Cold War geopolitics. It provides a genealogy of the 1975 United Nations resolution 3379, ...
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Chapter One situates this entanglement in competing post-Holocaust discourses of racial expertise and Cold War geopolitics. It provides a genealogy of the 1975 United Nations resolution 3379, condemning Zionism as a form of racism. Key are the scholar-activists of the PLO’s Palestine Research Center (PRC) and U.S. state agents like Daniel Patrick Moynihan articulating Cold War American exceptions.Less
Chapter One situates this entanglement in competing post-Holocaust discourses of racial expertise and Cold War geopolitics. It provides a genealogy of the 1975 United Nations resolution 3379, condemning Zionism as a form of racism. Key are the scholar-activists of the PLO’s Palestine Research Center (PRC) and U.S. state agents like Daniel Patrick Moynihan articulating Cold War American exceptions.
Elizabeth Todd-Breland
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469646589
- eISBN:
- 9781469647173
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469646589.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The introduction outlines the focus, scope, and significance of the book, introducing the Black activists, educators, parents, and students who navigated, challenged, and contributed to the urban ...
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The introduction outlines the focus, scope, and significance of the book, introducing the Black activists, educators, parents, and students who navigated, challenged, and contributed to the urban political and educational landscape from mid-twentieth century civil rights struggles through the recent corporate reorganization of the public sphere. Black women’s political and intellectual labor powered movements for racial justice and is centered in this discussion of Black politics, social movements, and education reform. The introduction explains how the book presents a different account of Black politics and urban communities in the period after the 1960s by challenging interpretations of urban decline and “urban crisis.” It also explains the historical and contemporary importance of education as a site of struggle that reveals the boundaries of U.S. democracy and changes in the relationship between citizens and the state. The introduction outlines how historical considerations of racial liberalism, the Great Migration, the New Deal, labor, Black protest, machine politics, deindustrialization, the politics of Black achievement, desegregation, self-determination, equity, and education reform inform subsequent chapters.Less
The introduction outlines the focus, scope, and significance of the book, introducing the Black activists, educators, parents, and students who navigated, challenged, and contributed to the urban political and educational landscape from mid-twentieth century civil rights struggles through the recent corporate reorganization of the public sphere. Black women’s political and intellectual labor powered movements for racial justice and is centered in this discussion of Black politics, social movements, and education reform. The introduction explains how the book presents a different account of Black politics and urban communities in the period after the 1960s by challenging interpretations of urban decline and “urban crisis.” It also explains the historical and contemporary importance of education as a site of struggle that reveals the boundaries of U.S. democracy and changes in the relationship between citizens and the state. The introduction outlines how historical considerations of racial liberalism, the Great Migration, the New Deal, labor, Black protest, machine politics, deindustrialization, the politics of Black achievement, desegregation, self-determination, equity, and education reform inform subsequent chapters.
Gregory S. Jay
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190687229
- eISBN:
- 9780190687250
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190687229.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
The discourse on racial liberalism at mid-century involved the debate over antisemitism, made more urgent by Hitler’s rise in Germany. Born Jewish but largely assimilated, Hobson protested the ...
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The discourse on racial liberalism at mid-century involved the debate over antisemitism, made more urgent by Hitler’s rise in Germany. Born Jewish but largely assimilated, Hobson protested the complicity of liberals with antisemitism in her post–WW II best seller, which featured a gentile journalist passing for Jewish to write his expose. This novel’s reliance on a discourse of empathy ties it closely back to Stowe’s and looks forward to the philosophy at the heart of Lee’s Mockingbird. Here the protagonist, Philip Greene, passes as a Jew to learn how antisemitism feels. Meanwhile his liberal girlfriend hesitates to rent her cottage in a restricted neighborhood to Philip’s Jewish war buddy. Both protagonists exhibit the limitations of liberalism as they confront systemic as well as emotional biases that threaten their idealism.Less
The discourse on racial liberalism at mid-century involved the debate over antisemitism, made more urgent by Hitler’s rise in Germany. Born Jewish but largely assimilated, Hobson protested the complicity of liberals with antisemitism in her post–WW II best seller, which featured a gentile journalist passing for Jewish to write his expose. This novel’s reliance on a discourse of empathy ties it closely back to Stowe’s and looks forward to the philosophy at the heart of Lee’s Mockingbird. Here the protagonist, Philip Greene, passes as a Jew to learn how antisemitism feels. Meanwhile his liberal girlfriend hesitates to rent her cottage in a restricted neighborhood to Philip’s Jewish war buddy. Both protagonists exhibit the limitations of liberalism as they confront systemic as well as emotional biases that threaten their idealism.
Matthew Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501748585
- eISBN:
- 9781501748592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501748585.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter discusses how black student activists led a campus strike at the University of Michigan (UM) in 1970, challenging entrenched ideas and practices that seemed so natural and embedded in ...
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This chapter discusses how black student activists led a campus strike at the University of Michigan (UM) in 1970, challenging entrenched ideas and practices that seemed so natural and embedded in the institution that administrators had never questioned them. The institutional values and practices that justified an admissions system that created racial disparities began in the mid-nineteenth century. Two core values emerged at the first board of regents meetings in Ann Arbor. Campus leaders wanted to create a university on par with any in the United States, and they wanted the university to offer broad access to the people of Michigan. But over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, campus leaders chose to subordinate the ideal of access to the goal of attaining and sustaining UM's elite status. In the 1940s and 1950s, administrators slowly purged official practices that mandated or accommodated segregation in campus buildings and social clubs. They slowly incorporated the prevailing ideas of racial liberalism. However, administrators never anticipated how the implementation of racial liberalism would impact black students. The ways that UM leaders crafted the model multiracial community led to a toxic racial climate at UM.Less
This chapter discusses how black student activists led a campus strike at the University of Michigan (UM) in 1970, challenging entrenched ideas and practices that seemed so natural and embedded in the institution that administrators had never questioned them. The institutional values and practices that justified an admissions system that created racial disparities began in the mid-nineteenth century. Two core values emerged at the first board of regents meetings in Ann Arbor. Campus leaders wanted to create a university on par with any in the United States, and they wanted the university to offer broad access to the people of Michigan. But over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, campus leaders chose to subordinate the ideal of access to the goal of attaining and sustaining UM's elite status. In the 1940s and 1950s, administrators slowly purged official practices that mandated or accommodated segregation in campus buildings and social clubs. They slowly incorporated the prevailing ideas of racial liberalism. However, administrators never anticipated how the implementation of racial liberalism would impact black students. The ways that UM leaders crafted the model multiracial community led to a toxic racial climate at UM.
Leah N. Gordon
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226238449
- eISBN:
- 9780226238586
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226238586.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
Although social structural, political economic, psychological, and legal conceptions of racism competed from the 1920s through the mid 1940s, individualistic theories of the race issue proved ...
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Although social structural, political economic, psychological, and legal conceptions of racism competed from the 1920s through the mid 1940s, individualistic theories of the race issue proved especially influential in postwar America. This book asks how and why racial individualism—which presented prejudice and discrimination as the root cause of racial conflict, centered individuals in the study of race relations, and suggested that one could secure racial justice by changing white minds and protecting African American rights—gained traction in the two decades following Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma (1944). A study in the racialized politics of knowledge production, the book examines institutions where social scientists, civil rights activists, and proponents of improved race relations debated the sources of and best ways to fight “the race problem.” Scientism, behavioralism, and methodological individualism intersected with antiradicalism, civil rights legal successes, rightward shifts in American liberalism, and the enduring appeal of uncontroversial tolerance education, the book argues, to favor individualistic approaches to racial research and reform. These dynamics proved influential despite ongoing critique—most notably in African American led academic spaces—of social theories that reduced racial oppression to individual prejudice and discrimination. The book traces the flowering a non-economic, power-evasive conception of racism, highlights the centrality of inflated assumptions about what education can accomplish to postwar racial liberalism, and investigates how antiracist scholar-activists negotiated competing theoretical and political commitments.Less
Although social structural, political economic, psychological, and legal conceptions of racism competed from the 1920s through the mid 1940s, individualistic theories of the race issue proved especially influential in postwar America. This book asks how and why racial individualism—which presented prejudice and discrimination as the root cause of racial conflict, centered individuals in the study of race relations, and suggested that one could secure racial justice by changing white minds and protecting African American rights—gained traction in the two decades following Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma (1944). A study in the racialized politics of knowledge production, the book examines institutions where social scientists, civil rights activists, and proponents of improved race relations debated the sources of and best ways to fight “the race problem.” Scientism, behavioralism, and methodological individualism intersected with antiradicalism, civil rights legal successes, rightward shifts in American liberalism, and the enduring appeal of uncontroversial tolerance education, the book argues, to favor individualistic approaches to racial research and reform. These dynamics proved influential despite ongoing critique—most notably in African American led academic spaces—of social theories that reduced racial oppression to individual prejudice and discrimination. The book traces the flowering a non-economic, power-evasive conception of racism, highlights the centrality of inflated assumptions about what education can accomplish to postwar racial liberalism, and investigates how antiracist scholar-activists negotiated competing theoretical and political commitments.
Lisa M. Corrigan
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781496827944
- eISBN:
- 9781496827999
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496827944.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
While the tensions between white hope and black despair were a dynamic that characterized politics in the Long Sixties, their structure is recursive. That is, the (positive and negative racial) ...
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While the tensions between white hope and black despair were a dynamic that characterized politics in the Long Sixties, their structure is recursive. That is, the (positive and negative racial) feelings that undergird racial liberalism did not stop emerging and receding after law and order campaigns destroyed civil rights and Black Power organizing in the mid-70s. Nowhere is this clearer than in the entrance and disappearance of the so-called “Obama coalition” in 2008 to elect Barack Obama as the first biracial/black president in U.S. history. In considering how hope continues to be inextricably linked to rage, contempt, and despair, this brief conclusion considers hope as an ironic discourse of liberalism, particularly as it is racialized. The birth of Afro- pessimism as a coterminous discourse with what we now call the “post-racial” Obama coalition is important because it demonstrates how black feelings in the Long Sixties continue to shape national political discourse, demonstrating how affective politics are iterative as well as how they change over time.Less
While the tensions between white hope and black despair were a dynamic that characterized politics in the Long Sixties, their structure is recursive. That is, the (positive and negative racial) feelings that undergird racial liberalism did not stop emerging and receding after law and order campaigns destroyed civil rights and Black Power organizing in the mid-70s. Nowhere is this clearer than in the entrance and disappearance of the so-called “Obama coalition” in 2008 to elect Barack Obama as the first biracial/black president in U.S. history. In considering how hope continues to be inextricably linked to rage, contempt, and despair, this brief conclusion considers hope as an ironic discourse of liberalism, particularly as it is racialized. The birth of Afro- pessimism as a coterminous discourse with what we now call the “post-racial” Obama coalition is important because it demonstrates how black feelings in the Long Sixties continue to shape national political discourse, demonstrating how affective politics are iterative as well as how they change over time.
Keith P. Feldman
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694501
- eISBN:
- 9781452950846
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694501.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Chapter Three interrogates how the suture between Zionism and American Jewishness was fashioned amid racial justice struggles of the late 1960s and early 1970s. A range of Jewish writers and ...
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Chapter Three interrogates how the suture between Zionism and American Jewishness was fashioned amid racial justice struggles of the late 1960s and early 1970s. A range of Jewish writers and activists connected their orientations towards Cold War liberalism both to the intensification of U.S. state violence and to the military supremacy and existential vulnerability of the Israel after 1967.Less
Chapter Three interrogates how the suture between Zionism and American Jewishness was fashioned amid racial justice struggles of the late 1960s and early 1970s. A range of Jewish writers and activists connected their orientations towards Cold War liberalism both to the intensification of U.S. state violence and to the military supremacy and existential vulnerability of the Israel after 1967.
Carl Suddler
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479847624
- eISBN:
- 9781479812691
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479847624.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter opens with a narrative vignette of David Campanella, son of Brooklyn Dodgers catcher Roy, to introduce the central themes of the text—racial criminalization, juvenile delinquency, and ...
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This chapter opens with a narrative vignette of David Campanella, son of Brooklyn Dodgers catcher Roy, to introduce the central themes of the text—racial criminalization, juvenile delinquency, and criminal justice. It provides clear definitions of key terms and concepts to be employed throughout the book, such as criminalization, carceral, and racial liberalism.Further, it claims its historiographical stakes in the field, which include challenging the notion that racial criminalization was a southern phenomenon, bridging a gap in juvenile justice history between the Great Depression and the Great Society, and broadening the scope of the carceral state to include historical actors beyond the justice system.Finally, it offers briefoutlines of the subsequent chapters.Less
This chapter opens with a narrative vignette of David Campanella, son of Brooklyn Dodgers catcher Roy, to introduce the central themes of the text—racial criminalization, juvenile delinquency, and criminal justice. It provides clear definitions of key terms and concepts to be employed throughout the book, such as criminalization, carceral, and racial liberalism.Further, it claims its historiographical stakes in the field, which include challenging the notion that racial criminalization was a southern phenomenon, bridging a gap in juvenile justice history between the Great Depression and the Great Society, and broadening the scope of the carceral state to include historical actors beyond the justice system.Finally, it offers briefoutlines of the subsequent chapters.