Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations

Racist America is simply the most comprehensive, concise, and useful textbook on systemic racism in the United States. With its direct and explicit focus on systemic racism this classic in racism studies boldly navigates students beyond the confusing discursive maze of racism-evasive language like race and the race issue. For more than a decade now I have used the previous editions in my racism courses with great success. I look forward to the many new insights and facts of this, the third edition, of Racist America.

- Noel A. Cazenave, Sociology, University of Connecticut

Racist America offers a timely, accessible, and engaging overview of the intersections of race and power in the United States. It provides a comprehensive history of racism and a dynamic survey of contemporary issues. Of particular value, the new edition augments its established account of systematic racism with the notion of racial framing, a powerful tool for understanding the interplay of structure, ideology, and identity.

-Richard King, Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies, Washington State University

Joe Feagin's Racist America forces readers to take a hard look at the schizophrenic worlds we live in regarding race. On one hand we are told repeatedly by the media that the election of a black President has ushered in an era of that is both post-race and color-blind. We also witness on a daily basis racist affronts such as a white man dressing up in black face as Tryvon Martin for Halloween, race targeted stop and frisk procedures and systemic institutional racism that maintains white privilege. Through use of historical analysis and current sociological research Feagin develops a white frame that decodes contemporary racist practices. Feagin's book is modern day Rosetta Stone for understanding why and how racial inequality is maintained and reproduced.

-Charles A. Gallagher, Professor and Chair, Sociology and Criminal Justice, La Salle University

In this day and age, it is rare to read a manuscript on racism that insists on an understanding of the actual historical, political, and economic foundations of white supremacy over the en vogue post-structural incantations of identity politics that masquerade as systemic analysis. Unlike many other works in the area of anti-Black racism, Feagin's Racist America continues the intellectual radicality of Black thinkers who first conceptualized the systemic cultural reproduction of American racism. Much like W.E.B. DuBois's, Joyce Ladner's, and the late Derrick Bell's confrontation with integrationism, Feagin does not flinch against the post-racialist fantasies of the Obama era and dares America to confront the white imperial delusions motivating its pretense of democracy.

-Tommy J. Curry, Philosophy, Texas A&M University

Professor Feagin's Racist America provides multi-disciplinary analysis of `systemic racism' for my classes (Race and Racism). I wholeheartedly endorse this new edition adding examples of family wealth racial disparities, institutional reformulation, `other Americans of color' and symbolic racism in sports media, with `framing' emanating from `founding fathers' and `constitutional' racism.

-James V. Fenelon, Sociology, Director of Center for Indigenous Peoples Studies, California State University, San Bernardino

Joe Feagin's creative and consistent narratives of Racist America draw attention to the prevalence and subtlety of systemic racism in contemporary U.S. With highly informative and insightful updates, Feagin once again charts a superb and fascinating critique of the production, reproduction and operation of systemic racism in the U.S. This powerful book is a must read.

-Anita Kalunta-Crumpton, Administration of Justice, Texas Southern University

In clear and accessible prose, Feagin summarizes the latest research on discrimination in employment, housing markets, and the criminal justice system. Anyone inclined to believe that the United States is fast becoming a 'color-blind' society will be disabused of that notion after reading this book.

-Matthew Nichter, Sociology, Rollins College

In what has become Joe Feagin's classic book in the sociology of race and critical studies of racism, Racist America carries out one of the most thorough and compelling portraits of racial inequality that exists in any discipline. From housing to education, the labor market to civil rights, the pervasiveness of racism provided here should put to rest the suggestion that racism is a deviance from the democratic norm. Both systemic and systematic, racism is thus understood as central to U.S. nation creation and the maintenance of a racialized order. Using analytic rigor and evidence, Feagin's book remains the authoritative book for all students and scholars who are serious in taking on the academic study of race and racism.

-Zeus Leonardo, Social and Cultural Studies, UC Berkeley, and Author of Race Frameworks

Feagin does an exemplary job outlining the continued significance of racism in society, and he offers a chapter on anti-racist strategies that can be employed by his white counterparts (essentially speaking) to ease the existence of its practice.Summing Up: Recommended.

- M Christian, Lehman College, CHOICE Review