Abstract
I have been teaching courses on race in sociology for some years now and have been troubled by the approach of many undergraduate textbooks for these courses. They begin with an overview of sociological theories about race, they discuss prejudice and immigration, and then the bulk of the text covers each major racial-ethnic group separately (Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, etc.). This approach of discussing each group separately serves to minimize the similarities between communities of color and the overall effect of systemic racism while overemphasizing differences between racial and ethnic groups. By focusing on the history and experiences of each racial group instead of exploring issues facing all people of color, this approach makes it hard to connect the genocide of Native Americans, the racialization of Mexican Americans, the exploitation of Asian Americans on the railroads, and the enslavement of African Americans—all of which have roots in European colonial racist ideologies and worked in tangent to build the United States as we know it. Students may be left with the thought that each group’s experience is unique and miss the fact that systematic racism hurts everyone, including those in the dominant racial group. Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach, by Tonya Maria Golosh-Boza, views issues surrounding race from a more sociological perspective.
The text is about 500 pages with approximately 440 of those pages consisting of actual chapters. The primary audience is undergraduate students in a Race or Race and Ethnic Relations course, and while the language may be a bit challenging for less prepared students, it is overall accessible to the intended audience. Race and Racisms is well organized and takes the undergraduate student on a journey through the social construction of race, debunking the often ingrained beliefs that there have always been separate races and that those racial boundaries have remained the same throughout history. For example, in chapter 1, the author explains, “Ancient peoples did not divide the world into distinct races based on their physical and cultural traits” (p. 7). Later in the chapter, she illustrates how Carolus Linnaeus “proposed that all human beings could be divided into four groups . . . consistent with the modern idea of race” (p. 23).
The book is organized into four sections: The first section, titled “The History of the Idea of Race,” discusses the evolution of the concept of race and the ideology behind racism. Section 2, “Racial Ideologies,” systematically explores ideas about race from the 1920s to the present, including the concepts of colorism, skin color stratification, and white privilege. Section 3, “Policy and Institutions,” explores the prevailing sociological theories of race and ethnicities and the racial and ethnic inequalities in various social institutions, including wage gaps, education, wealth, health care, environment, and the criminal justice system. The section ends by covering the policies governing race and immigration in the United States across the history of the nation. The final section, “Contesting and Comparing Racial Injustices,” explores racial justice movements in the United States as well as race in a global context, specifically focusing on France, South Africa, and Brazil, each of which defines race and addresses racial minorities in very different ways. For example, my students who have lived in Europe often argue that there is no racism in Europe; the focus is on nationality instead of race. In chapter 15, the text explains how “France has historically maintained a color-blind stance, meaning that anyone, regardless of skin color or place of birth, can become French. . . . [E]thnic categories such as Martinican French . . . are not legally recognized in France” and that France does not track racial identities in the same way that the United States does (p. 418). Golash-Boza further points out, “Despite an official rhetoric of equality, however, French people of African and Arab descent continue to be socially and economically marginalized” (p. 419).
Race and Racisms focuses on racism as an ideology and a set of practices that permeates all aspects of life. Although it covers the negative outcomes of racism and racist ideology, the text spends a lot of time exposing how racism works in covert and insidious ways. There is a consistency throughout the book as it keeps coming back to the theme of racism as an ideology that is ingrained into the very fabric of society. This approach makes privilege more transparent and takes the focus off of individual acts of racism, which makes understanding racism more palatable for white students.
I found the book interesting and engaging, and I appreciated the focus on intersectionality and the social construction of race. Many undergraduate texts mention these theories in a chapter on theory but do not integrate them throughout the book. In my experience with that approach, students do not have a full understanding of these prevailing sociological theories. Race and Racisms, however, comes back to intersectionality with each issue it covers. It also clearly illustrates the social construction of race in different sections of the book and wraps up the text with the idea that race and racism, while global concepts, are manifested very differently in different societies—basic themes within sociology that are often hard for undergraduate students to truly grasp. It is my hope that students, having revisited these concepts with a variety of issues and multiple times throughout the semester, will have a richer, deeper understanding of these prevailing theories and how vital they are to understanding the world around us. Instead of covering each race separately and individually, the text focuses on major issues that deal with race and ethnicity and uses examples from different racial groups to show how all racial groups are affected by the same challenges, albeit in different ways. Instead of discussing boarding schools in the Native American chapter, and the myth of the “model minority” in the Asian American chapter, Race and Racisms explores educational inequality as a whole in chapter 8. By analyzing the issue of educational inequality with a focus on intersectionality, the text illuminates for students how inequality affects racial groups differently. Additionally, it illustrates how education, as a site of institutional racism, affects all racial-ethnic groups. This approach breaks down the fabricated differences between people of color, giving students instead “a comprehensive discussion of the history of the idea of race” (no page number), showing how issues such as differential justice affect whites and nonwhites alike.
The text appeals to a broad audience because it has something for every learning style. For analytical and logical students, it offers clear statistics and visual aids, including timelines that provide a visual representation of the history of a topic and how it changed across time. It also has a “research focus” section that introduces students to current research in the topic area being discussed. Each chapter starts with an excerpt from a different scholar, which prepares the student for the topic being discussed and whets their appetite to learn more about it. Chapter 1 begins with an excerpt from Howard Zinn’s A People’s History. Chapter 8, “Educational Inequality,” draws the reader in with an excerpt from Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol. Chapter 11, which covers the criminal justice system, uses an excerpt from Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. This is one of my favorite features because it encourages students to read outside of the text in a way that a list of “further readings” does not. After reading about how being labeled a felon in present day United States subjects individuals to the same discriminations faced during the Jim Crow era, hopefully undergraduates will find their interest peaked and will read The New Jim Crow in its entirety.
Students who prefer a more individual and personal perspective will enjoy the “voices” feature, which presents individual experiences with racism and discrimination and the effect they had on a real person. In Chapter 13, “Racism, Nativism, and Immigration Policy,” the feature focuses on Hector, who came to the United States at the age of three and went through the educational system, including graduating from the University of California. He became involved with a credit card scam and was found guilty and sentenced to jail time. After his release from jail, Hector then was subject to a deportation hearing where “it did not matter that he had come to the United States when he was three years old, that he was a legal permanent resident, that he had a college degree, and that he had no immediate family in Guatemala. Hector was ultimately deported” (p. 379). This puts a human face on the “immigration issue” for students. The stories and personal experiences are touching and compelling.
The author was careful to provide a wide range of diverse examples that humanize a difficult subject. Additionally, recent photos highlighting events around the world help bring the text to life. Finally, in our ever-shrinking world, the focus on a global perspective in the “global view” feature for each chapter helps illuminate for students how issues that manifest in one way in the United States are also present across the globe although they may look and sound quite different. One that I found fascinating was “Social, Cultural, and Intergenerational Whitening in Latin America,” which discusses light-skinned privilege and the concept of “social whitening” (p. 165).
This textbook is well organized for instructors and makes it quite easy to organize a course around it. It approaches the topic of race in an organized manner that introduces students to concepts and builds upon that learning throughout the book. Students are introduced to each chapter with an “as you read” section that highlights the main ideas they should focus on in their reading. Students who struggle with reading comprehension will benefit from this as well as from the glossary terms defined on the side of the page. Students are also provided with a summary at the end of each chapter that reviews the main learning from that chapter along with review questions to help them study. The author has also provided critical thinking questions that can be used for class discussion, small-group discussion, or paper prompts. For example, in the chapter summary for chapter 4, “The Spread of Ideology,” one of the critical thinking questions states, Television shows change constantly. Thus, the shows mentioned in this chapter may or may not be familiar to you and may or may not still be on the air. Do the stereotypes mentioned in this chapter apply to the shows you watch? Why or why not? Pick one popular show on television and assess the extent to which the non-white characters fit into stereotypical roles. Are the Latina characters portrayed as hypersexual? Are the Asians and Native Americans stoic? Describe at least two characters in a popular television show and then assess the extent to which those characters fit into the controlling images for their group. (P. 119)
This critical thinking question is a perfect lead-in to the content analysis project I use as my midterm in the race class.
The text covers most racial groups in each chapter, and there are ample opportunities to build activities and projects into the course. For example, in the past I have had students report on a lesser-known historical event, such as the Tulsa Race Riots or the Zoot Suit Riots, when we were covering specific racial-ethnic groups in the chapters of the text. I have also used visual and visceral activities, such as opportunity walks, to illustrate how race (and other modes of oppression) affect life chances. Those types of activities can easily be worked into a course with this text as well.
Overall, I highly recommend this book. I find the approach and the pedagogy much more consistent with a sociological perspective about race than other textbooks I have used. The text would benefit from a more detailed and specific discussion about color-blind racism, but it does an excellent job covering white privilege and media representations of people of color. Race and Racisms gives undergraduate students a solid sociological understanding of the social construction of race focusing on intersectionality and current theories of race and racism with a consistent and well-organized approach. By covering issues instead of groups, the text highlights the similarities in the negative impact of structural racism for all groups. I am looking forward to revamping my Race and Ethnic Groups course around this textbook.