Synopses & Reviews
Even as America becomes more multiracial, the black-white divide remains central to understanding many patterns and tensions in contemporary society. Since the 1960s, however, social scientists concerned with this topic have been reluctant to discuss the cultural dimensions of racial inequality—not wanting to "blame the victim" for having "wrong values."
The Cultural Territories of Race redirects this research tendency, employing today's more sophisticated methods of cultural analysis toward a new understanding of how cultural structures articulate the black/white problem.
These essays examine the cultural territories of race through topics such as blacks' strategies for dealing with racism, public categories for definition of race, and definitions of rules for cultural memberships. Empirically grounded, these studies analyze divisions among blacks according to their relationships with whites or with alternative black culture; differences among whites regarding their attitudes toward blacks; and differences both among blacks and between blacks and whites, in their cultural understandings of various aspects of social life ranging from material success to marital life and to ideas about feminism. The essays teach us about the largely underexamined cultural universes of black executives, upwardly mobile college students, fast-food industry workers, so-called deadbeat dads, and proponents of Afrocentric curricula.
The Cultural Territories of Race makes an important contribution to current policy debates by amplifying muted voices that have too often been ignored by other social scientists.
Contributors are: Elijah Anderson, Amy Binder, Bethany Bryson, Michael C. Dawson, Catherine Ellis, Herbert J. Gans, Jennifer L. Hochschild, Michèle Lamont, Jane J. Mansbridge, Katherine S. Newman, Maureen R. Waller, Pamela Barnhouse Walters, Mary C. Waters, Julia Wrigley, Alford A. Young Jr.
About the Author
Michèle Lamont is the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and professor of sociology and African and Africa American Studies at Harvard University.
Table of Contents
Beyond taking culture seriously /Micháele Lamont --Social situation of the black executive : black and white identities in the corporate world /Elijah Anderson --Navigating race : getting ahead in the lives of "rags to riches" young black men /Alford A. Young, Jr. --Explaining the comfort factor : West Indian immigrants confront American race relations /Mary C. Waters --Is racial oppression intrinsic to domestic work? The experiences of children's caregivers in contemporary America /Julia Wrigley --Above "people above" status and worth among white and black workers /Micháele Lamont --"There's no shame in my game" : status and stigma among Harlem's working poor /Katherine S. Newman and Catherine Ellis --Meanings and motives in new family stories : the separation of reproduction and marriage among low-income black and white parents /Maureen R. Waller --Friend and foe : boundary work and collective identity in the Afrocentric and multicultural curriculum movements in American public education /Amy Binder --Multiculturalism as a moving moral boundary : literature professors redefine racism /Bethany Bryson --Education and advancement : exploring the hopes and dreams of blacks and poor whites at the turn of the century /Pamela Barnhouse Walters --"You're too independent" : how gender, race, and class make many plural feminisms /Jane J. Mansbridge --"Dis beat disrupts" : rap, ideology, and black political attitudes /Michael C. Dawson --Affirmative action as culture war /Jennifer L. Hochschild --Possibility of a new racial hierarchy in the twenty-first-century United States /Herbert J. Gans.