Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life

Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life

Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life

Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life

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Overview

Hailed by Zadie Smith and Ta-Nehisi Coates, this new edition of the celebrated contemporary work on race and racism “ought to be positioned at the center of any discussion of race in American life” (Bookforum).

Most people assume racism grows from a perception of human difference: the fact of race gives rise to the practice of racism.  Sociologist Karen E. Fields and historian Barbara J. Fields argue otherwise: the practice of racism produces the illusion of race, through what they call “racecraft.” And this phenomenon is intimately entwined with other forms of inequality in American life. So pervasive are the devices of racecraft in American history, economic doctrine, politics, and everyday thinking that the presence of racecraft itself goes  unnoticed.

That the promised post-racial age has not dawned, the authors argue, reflects the failure of Americans to develop a legitimate language for thinking about and discussing inequality. That failure should worry everyone who cares about democratic institutions.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781844679959
Publisher: Verso Books
Publication date: 10/09/2012
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 310
Sales rank: 457,496
File size: 371 KB

About the Author

Barbara J. Fields is Professor of History at Columbia University. Her books include the prize-winning Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the Nineteenth Century; The Destruction of Slavery (coauthored with the Freedmen and Southern Society Project); and Free at Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom, and the Civil War.

Karen E. Fields is Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Center for African and African American Research at Duke University. Her books include a translation of Emile Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious Life. She is at work on Racism in the Academy: A Traveler’s Guide and Bordeaux’s Africa.

Table of Contents

Authors' Note vii

Introduction 1

1 A Tour of Racecraft 25

2 Individual Stories and America's Collective Past 75

3 Of Rogues and Geldings 95

4 Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of America 111

5 Origins of the New South and the Negro Question 149

6 What One Cannot Remember Mistakenly 171

7 Witchcraft and Racecraft: Invisible Ontology in Its Sensible Manifestations 193

8 Individuality and the Intellectuals: An Imaginary Conversation Between Emile Durkheim and W. E. B. Du Bois 225

Conclusion: Racecraft and Inequality 261

Index 291

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