Racism: Essential Readings

Abstract

Reviews the book, Racism: Essential Readings edited by Ellis Cashmore and James Jennings (2001). This book includes 38 essays, spanning a 90-year period from 1905 to 1995, pondering how best to conceptualize racism and the many complex questions that racism raises. What is racism? Is it a function of class struggle and economic exploitation or an independent social dynamic? If race is not a viable biological concept, as most of the contributors find-and most social scientists today accept-why is racism so intractable? Should the focus of studies of racism be primarily on its victims or its perpetrators? Why is it so difficult for white people to see and acknowledge racism? How is racism manifested today, what is racist, and who are racists? These are some questions considered in the essays in this book. Some chapters are dense, dated, polemical, insular, and virtually unreadable. The commentary by the editors before each contribution is brief but concisely summarizes the key ideas in the essays. This book is mostly a book for people who are particularly interested in racism and who want to trace the intellectual history of those who study it, particularly sociologists and socialists. The book is very much a presence in American life today, and any book that presents a serious and complex discussion of some of its core issues is welcome. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)