Race Class And Power

This work examines race, class, and the mechanics of inequality in the US, focusing on Kentucky and its political and social transformation from slavery, sharecropping, and Jim Crow through the populist era, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and the state's integration into the global economy. The author combines sociological insight with her own personal narrative to illustrate the ways in which constructions of race and the promise of white privilege have been used in two Kentucky counties to divide working class people. Buck teaches anthropology and sociology at a college in Kentucky. c. Book News Inc.

Using arresting case studies of how ordinary people understand the concepts of race, class, and gender, Celine-Marie Pascale shows that the peculiarity of commonsense is that it imposes obviousness—that which we cannot fail to recognize. As a result, how we negotiate the challenges of inequality in the twenty-first century may depend less on what people consciously think about "difference" and more on what we inadvertently assume. Through an analysis of commonsense knowledge, Pascale expertly provides new insights into familiar topics. In addition, by analyzing local practices in the context of established cultural discourses, Pascale shows how the weight of history bears on the present moment, both enabling and constraining possibilities. Pascale tests the boundaries of sociological knowledge and offers new avenues for conceptualizing social change. In 2008, Making Sense of Race, Class and Gender was the recipient of the Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award, of the American Sociological Association Section on Race, Gender, and Class, for "distinguished and significant contribution to the development of the integrative field of race, gender, and class."

Using the East Baltimore community as an example this book examines historical and current rebuilding practices in abandoned communities in urban America, their structural causes, and outcomes on the health of the place and the people. The role of community organizing as a necessary means to assure benefit during and after resident displacement, its challenges and successes, are described in the context of a current eminent domain-driven rebuilding project in East Baltimore.

From one of our most important scholars and civil rights activist icon, a powerful study of the women’s liberation movement and the tangled knot of oppression facing Black women. “Angela Davis is herself a woman of undeniable courage. She should be heard.”—The New York Times Angela Davis provides a powerful history of the social and political influence of whiteness and elitism in feminism, from abolitionist days to the present, and demonstrates how the racist and classist biases of its leaders inevitably hampered any collective ambitions. While Black women were aided by some activists like Sarah and Angelina Grimke and the suffrage cause found unwavering support in Frederick Douglass, many women played on the fears of white supremacists for political gain rather than take an intersectional approach to liberation. Here, Davis not only contextualizes the legacy and pitfalls of civil and women’s rights activists, but also discusses Communist women, the murder of Emmitt Till, and Margaret Sanger’s racism. Davis shows readers how the inequalities between Black and white women influence the contemporary issues of rape, reproductive freedom, housework and child care in this bold and indispensable work.

Explores the intersection of two central issues in American education today: school reform through restructuring and alienation from school of many children of color. A tough look at the impact of teachers' and administrators' beliefs and practices.

Using post–Civil War Richmond, Virginia, as a case study, Hoffman explores the role of race and class in the city building process from 1870 to 1920. Richmond’s railroad connections enabled the city to participate in the commercial expansion that accompanied the rise of the New South. A highly compact city of mixed residential, industrial and commercial space at the end of the Civil War, Richmond remained a classic example of what historians call a “walking city” through the end of the century. As city streets were improved and public transportation became available, the city’s white merchants and emerging white middle class sought homes removed from the congested downtown. The city’s African American and white workers generally could not afford to take part in this residential migration. As a result, the mixture of race and class that had existed in the city since its inception began to disappear. The city of Richmond exemplified characteristics of both Northern and Southern cities during the period from 1870 to 1920. Retreating Confederate soldiers had started fires that destroyed the city in 1865, but by 1870, the former capital of the Confederacy was on the road to recovery from war and reconstruction, reestablishing itself as an important manufacturing and trade center. The city’s size, diversity and economic position at the time not only allows for comparisons to both Northern and Southern cities but also permits an analysis of the role of groups other than the elite in city building process. By taking a look at Richmond, we are able to see a more complete picture of how American cities have come to be the way they are.