Mixed Race Studies

Recognizing Race and Ethnicity: Power, Privilege, and Inequality

Westview Press
2014-03-11
552 pages
Print ISBN: 9780813349305
Ebook ISBN: 9780813349312

Kathleen J. Fitzgerald, Professor of Sociology
University of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana

Despite radical changes over the last century, race remains a central organizing principle in U.S. society, a key arena of inequality, and the subject of ongoing conflict and debate. In a refreshing new introduction to the sociology of race, Recognizing Race and Ethnicity encourages students to think differently by challenging the notion that we are, or should even aspire to be, color-blind.

In this text, Kathleen Fitzgerald considers how the continuing significance of race manifests in both significant and obscure ways by looking across all racial/ethnic groups within the socio-historical context of institutions and arenas, rather than discussing each group by group. Incorporating recent research and contemporary theoretical perspectives, she guides students to examine racial ideologies and identities as well as structural racism; at the same time, she covers topics like popular culture, sports, and interracial relationships that will keep students engaged. Recognizing Race and Ethnicity provides unparalleled coverage of white privilege while remaining careful to not treat “white” as the norm against which all other groups are defined.

Recognizing Race and Ethnicity makes it clear that, in a time when race and racism are constantly evolving in response to varied social contexts, societal demands, and political climates, we all must learn to recognize race if we are to get beyond it.

Table of Contents

• Part 1: Thinking About Race
  • 1. Taking Account of Race and Privilege
  • 2. White Privilege: The Other Side of Racism
  • 3. Science and the Sociology of Race
• Part 2: A Sociological History of US Race Relations
  • 4. Emergence of the US Racial Hierarchy
  • 5. Race Relations in the 19th and 20th Centuries
  • 6. Race Relations in Flux: Post-World War II Activism
• Part 3: Institutional Inequalities
  • 7. Education
  • 8. Economic Inequality and the Role of the State
  • 9. Crime and Criminal Justice
  • 10. Race in the Cultural Imagination
• Part 4: Contemporary Issues in Race/Ethnicity
  • 11. Arenas of Racial Integration: Interracial Relationships, Multiracial Families, Biracial/Multiracial Identities, Sports, and the Military
  • 12. A Post-Racial Society?