Race, Incarceration, and American Values

Race, Incarceration, and American Values
Author: Glenn C. Loury
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2008-08-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0262260948

Why stigmatizing and confining a large segment of our population should be unacceptable to all Americans. The United States, home to five percent of the world's population, now houses twenty-five percent of the world's prison inmates. Our incarceration rate—at 714 per 100,000 residents and rising—is almost forty percent greater than our nearest competitors (the Bahamas, Belarus, and Russia). More pointedly, it is 6.2 times the Canadian rate and 12.3 times the rate in Japan. Economist Glenn Loury argues that this extraordinary mass incarceration is not a response to rising crime rates or a proud success of social policy. Instead, it is the product of a generation-old collective decision to become a more punitive society. He connects this policy to our history of racial oppression, showing that the punitive turn in American politics and culture emerged in the post-civil rights years and has today become the main vehicle for the reproduction of racial hierarchies. Whatever the explanation, Loury argues, the uncontroversial fact is that changes in our criminal justice system since the 1970s have created a nether class of Americans—vastly disproportionately black and brown—with severely restricted rights and life chances. Moreover, conservatives and liberals agree that the growth in our prison population has long passed the point of diminishing returns. Stigmatizing and confining of a large segment of our population should be unacceptable to Americans. Loury's call to action makes all of us now responsible for ensuring that the policy changes.

The Color of Race in America, 1900-1940

The Color of Race in America, 1900-1940
Author: Matthew Pratt Guterl
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2002-10-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0674038053

With the social change brought on by the Great Migration of African Americans into the urban northeast after the Great War came the surge of a biracial sensibility that made America different from other Western nations. How white and black people thought about race and how both groups understood and attempted to define and control the demographic transformation are the subjects of this new book by a rising star in American history. An elegant account of the roiling environment that witnessed the shift from the multiplicity of white races to the arrival of biracialism, this book focuses on four representative spokesmen for the transforming age: Daniel Cohalan, the Irish-American nationalist, Tammany Hall man, and ruthless politician; Madison Grant, the patrician eugenicist and noisy white supremacist; W. E. B. Du Bois, the African-American social scientist and advocate of social justice; and Jean Toomer, the American pluralist and novelist of the interior life. Race, politics, and classification were their intense and troubling preoccupations in a world they did not create, would not accept, and tried to change.

Race Sounds

Race Sounds
Author: Nicole Brittingham Furlonge
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1609385616

Forging new ideas about the relationship between race and sound, Furlonge explores how black artists--including well-known figures such as writers Ralph Ellison and Zora Neale Hurston, and singers Bettye LaVette and Aretha Franklin, among others--imagine listening. Drawing from a multimedia archive, Furlonge examines how many of the texts call on readers to "listen in print." In the process, she gives us a new way to read and interpret these canonical, aurally inflected texts, and demonstrates how listening allows us to engage with the sonic lives of difference as readers, thinkers, and citizens.

Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life

Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 753
Release: 2004-10-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309092116

In their later years, Americans of different racial and ethnic backgrounds are not in equally good-or equally poor-health. There is wide variation, but on average older Whites are healthier than older Blacks and tend to outlive them. But Whites tend to be in poorer health than Hispanics and Asian Americans. This volume documents the differentials and considers possible explanations. Selection processes play a role: selective migration, for instance, or selective survival to advanced ages. Health differentials originate early in life, possibly even before birth, and are affected by events and experiences throughout the life course. Differences in socioeconomic status, risk behavior, social relations, and health care all play a role. Separate chapters consider the contribution of such factors and the biopsychosocial mechanisms that link them to health. This volume provides the empirical evidence for the research agenda provided in the separate report of the Panel on Race, Ethnicity, and Health in Later Life.

The History of White People

The History of White People
Author: Nell Irvin Painter
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2011-04-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 039307949X

A New York Times Bestseller This terrific new book…[explores] the ‘notion of whiteness,’ an idea as dangerous as it is seductive." —Boston Globe Telling perhaps the most important forgotten story in American history, eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter guides us through more than two thousand years of Western civilization, illuminating not only the invention of race but also the frequent praise of “whiteness” for economic, scientific, and political ends. A story filled with towering historical figures, The History of White People closes a huge gap in literature that has long focused on the non-white and forcefully reminds us that the concept of “race” is an all-too-human invention whose meaning, importance, and reality have changed as it has been driven by a long and rich history of events.

Race in American Television [2 volumes]

Race in American Television [2 volumes]
Author: David J. Leonard
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 901
Release: 2021-01-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

This two-volume encyclopedia explores representations of people of color in American television. It includes overview essays on early, classic, and contemporary television and the challenges for, developments related to, and participation of minorities on and behind the screen. Covering five decades, this encyclopedia highlights how race has shaped television and how television has shaped society. Offering critical analysis of moments and themes throughout television history, Race in American Television shines a spotlight on key artists of color, prominent shows, and the debates that have defined television since the civil rights movement. This book also examines the ways in which television has been a site for both reproduction of stereotypes and resistance to them, providing a basis for discussion about racial issues in the United States. This set provides a significant resource for students and fans of television alike, not only educating but also empowering readers with the necessary tools to consume and watch the small screen and explore its impact on the evolution of racial and ethnic stereotypes in U.S. culture and beyond. Understanding the history of American television contributes to deeper knowledge and potentially helps us to better apprehend the plethora of diverse shows and programs on Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and other platforms today.

Race

Race
Author: Studs Terkel
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Oral history
ISBN: 9781595588104

Presents the feelings of nearly one hundred Americans on such issues as affirmative action, changing neighborhoods, and secret prejudices.

Race and Football in America

Race and Football in America
Author: Dawn Knight
Publisher: Red Lightning Books
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2019-07-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1684350689

As the first African American player to be drafted by the NFL and the first African American to play quarterback, George Taliaferro was a trailblazer whose athletic prowess earned him accolades throughout his football career. Instrumental in leading Indiana University to an undefeated season and undisputed Big Ten championship in 1945, Taliaferro was a star when many major universities had no black players on their rosters and others were stacking black players behind white starters. George Taliaferro would later rack up impressive statistics while playing professionally for the New York Yanks, Dallas Texans, Baltimore Colts, and Philadelphia Eagles. His athletic prowess did little to prevent him from facing segregation and discrimination on a daily basis, but his popularity as an athlete also gave him a platform. Playing professionally gave Taliaferro more opportunity to use football to fight oppression and to interact with other important trailblazers, like Joe Louis, Nat King Cole, Muhammad Ali, and Congressman John Lewis. Race and Football in America tells Taliaferro's story and profiles the experiences of other athletes of color who were recognized for their athleticism yet oppressed for their skin color, as they fought (and continue to fight) for equal rights and opportunities. Together these stories provide an insightful portrait of race in America.

The Beiging of America, Personal Narratives about Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century

The Beiging of America, Personal Narratives about Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century
Author: Cathy J. Schlund Vials
Publisher: 2Leaf Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2017-07-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1940939550

THE BEIGING OF AMERICA, BEING MIXED RACE IN THE 21ST CENTURY, takes on “race matters” and considers them through the firsthand accounts of mixed race people in the United States. Edited by mixed race scholars Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Sean Frederick Forbes and Tara Betts, this collection consists of 39 poets, writers, teachers, professors, artists and activists, whose personal narratives articulate the complexities of interracial life. THE BEIGING OF AMERICA is an absorbing and thought-provoking collection of stories that explore racial identity, alienation, with people often forced to choose between races and cultures in their search for self-identity. While underscoring the complexity of the mixed race experience, these unadorned voices offer a genuine, poignant, enlightening and empowering message to all readers.

Black Ethnics

Black Ethnics
Author: Christina M. Greer
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2013-06-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199989311

In an age where racial and ethnic identity intersect, intertwine, and interact in increasingly complex ways, Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream offers a superb and rigorous analysis of black politics and coalitions in the post-Civil Rights era. Using an original survey of a New York City labor population and multiple national data sources, author Christina M. Greer explores the political significance of ethnicity for new immigrant and native-born blacks. Black Ethnics concludes that racial and ethnic identities affect the ways in which black ethnic groups conceptualize their possibilities for advancement and placement within the American polity. The ethnic and racial dual identity for blacks leads to significant distinctions in political behavior, feelings of incorporation, and policy choices in ways not previously theorized. The steady immigration of black populations from Africa and the Caribbean over the past few decades has fundamentally changed the racial, ethnic, and political landscape in the U.S. An important question for social scientists is how these 'new' blacks will behave politically in the US. Should we expect new black immigrants to orient themselves to politics in the same manner as native Blacks? Will the different histories of the new immigrants and native-born blacks lead to different political orientations and behavior, and perhaps to political tensions and conflict among black ethnic groups residing in America? And to what extent will this new population fracture the black coalition inside of the Democratic party? With increases in immigration of black ethnic populations in the U.S., the political, social, and economic integration processes of black immigrants does not completely echo that of native-born American blacks. The emergent complexity of black intra-racial identity and negotiations within the American polity raise new questions about black political incorporation, assimilation, acceptance, and fulfillment of the American Dream. By comparing Afro-Caribbean and African groups to native-born blacks, this book develops a more nuanced and accurate understanding of the 'new black America' in the twenty-first century. Lastly, Black Ethnics explores how foreign-born blacks create new ways of defining and understanding black politics and coalitions in the post-Civil Rights era.