Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations

393 Pages·2014·1.58 MB·English

by  Joe R. Feagin

Racist America
This third edition of Joe R. Feagin’s Racist America is significantly revised
and updated, with an eye toward racism issues arising regularly in our
contemporary era. This edition incorporates more than 200 recent research
studies and reports on U.S. racial issues that update and enhance all the
last edition’s chapters. It expands the discussion and data on concepts
such as the white racial frame and systemic racism from research studies
by Feagin and his colleagues. The author has further polished the book
to make it yet more readable for undergraduates, including eliminating
repetitive materials, adding headings and more cross- referencing, and
adding new examples, anecdotes, and narratives about contemporary
racism.
Joe R. Feagin is Ella C. McFadden Professor in Sociology at Texas A&M
University. Feagin has done research on racism and sexism issues for
decades. He has written 63 scholarly books and more than 200 scholarly
articles in his research areas, and one of his books (Ghetto Revolts) was
nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His numerous Routledge books include
Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression (2006), Two Faced Racism: Whites
in the Backstage and Frontstage (2007), White Party, White Government:
Race, Class, and U.S. Politics (2012), and The White Racial Frame (second
edition, 2013).
Feagin is the 2012 recipient of the Soka Gakkai International-
USA Social Justice Award, the 2013 American Association for Affirmative
Action’s Arthur Fletcher Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2013
American Sociological Association’s W. E. B. Du Bois Career of
Distinguished Scholarship Award. He was the 1999–2000 president of the
American Sociological Association.
TITLES OF RELATED INTEREST
White Party, White Government: Race, Class, and U.S. Politics by
Joe R. Feagin
Yes We Can? White Racial Framing and the Obama Presidency, second
edition, by Adia Harvey Wingfield and Joe R. Feagin
White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-F raming,
second edition, by Joe R. Feagin
Race, Law, and American Society: 1607–Present, second edition, by Gloria J.
Browne- Marshall
Forthcoming:
Racial Formation in the United States, third edition, by Michael Omi and
Howard Winant
How Blacks Made America Possible, by Joe R. Feagin
Racist America
Roots, Current Realities, and Future
Reparations
Third Edition
Joe R. Feagin
ROUTLEDGE RTayoloru &t Flreandcisg Ceroup
NEW YORK AND LONDON
First published 2014
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
The right of Joe R. Feagin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by
him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2000
Second edition published by Routledge 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Feagin, Joe R.
Racist America : roots, current realities, and future reparations / by Joe R. Feagin. –
Third edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. African Americans–Civil rights. 2. African Americans–Social conditions–1975–
3. Racism–United States. 4. Race discrimination. 5. United States–Race relations.
6. African Americans–Reparations. I. Title.
E185.615.F387 2014
323.1196'073–dc23 2013031290
ISBN: 978-0-415-70400-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-70401-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-76237-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Minion
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
To Mel Sikes, Roy Brooks, Hernán Vera, Ronald Takaki, and
Thomas Pettigrew
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Contents
Preface ix
1 Systemic Racism: A Comprehensive Perspective 1
2 Slavery Unwilling to Die: The Historical Development of
Systemic Racism 35
3 The White Racial Frame: A Social Force 63
4 Contemporary Racial Framing: White Americans 101
5 Racial Oppression Today: Everyday Practice 143
6 More Racial Oppression: Other Institutional Sectors 169
7 White Privileges and Black Burdens: Still Systemic Racism 207
8 Systemic Racism: Other Americans of Color 233
9 Antiracist Strategies and Solutions: Past, Present, and Future 267
Notes 319
Index 365
vii
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Preface
A few years back the prominent white comedian Michael Richards, who was
once part of the television show Seinfeld, was caught on camera yelling racist
slurs, including “nigger,” at black customers in his audience during a comedic
performance. According to news reports, Richards yelled at one black
audience member: “Shut up! Fifty years ago, we’d have you upside down . . .”
as part of his commentary. Later he apologized, with an explanation that “I
work in a very uncontrolled manner onstage. I do a lot of free association.”1
Some months later popular radio talk- show host Don Imus made
similarly blatant racist comments about a successful black women’s
basketball team. He laughingly called these talented college students
“nappy- headed hos.” Imus brought harsh emotion- laden framing of black
women usually reserved for white locker-r oom banter into the public
frontstage. Imus was briefly fired, but white executives soon had him
back on the radio. Surveys indicated that the overwhelming majority of
African Americans thought he should have been fired for his remarks, but
only 47 percent of whites agreed. Apparently, a large proportion of white
Americans do not see such viciously racist public attacks as particularly
serious.2 Blatantly racist incidents still routinely erupt across a country
that many people now wishfully describe as “post- racial.”
Anthropologist Jane Hill has examined how and why many whites come
to define racist outbursts by white celebrities and politicians as not serious,
as “gaffes” that do not reveal a deeper racist framing of the protagonists.
Her research makes clear the central role of the English language in
imbedding and perpetuating the old and very deep white racial framing of
U.S. society. The widespread character of this “gaffe” racism, and the way
such events get discussed obsessively and circulated extensively around the
society, are an indication that the old-f ashioned racism of the past has not
disappeared and been replaced by a post- racial society.3
In verbal attacks on black Americans, these prominent white
entertainers used emotion- laden racist words, imagery, and commentary
that was taken out of a centuries- old white-r acist framing of black
Americans. Such views date back to the days of slavery and legal
segregation. These views and actions stemming from them today reveal
the important aspects of the societal racism examined in this book—the
negative images of black men and women dancing in white heads, the
white racial framing that legitimates antiblack images, the commonplace
discriminatory practices of whites, the arrogance of white power, and
ix