Synopses & Reviews
"This sophisticated account of a remarkable city's coalitions and conflicts over half a century is an outstanding contribution to urban history and political analysis. Clearly written and amply supplied with good stories, the book will interest students of urban history, social movements, and American political change."and#151;Charles Tilly, author of
Durable Inequality"An altogether exemplary book. Rhomberg uses a combination of traditional class analysis, an institutional perspective on urban politics, and social movement theory to fashion a rich and persuasive account of the history of urban political conflict in Oakland between 1920-1975. In combining these strands of theory and research, he has also given us a model for the kind of dynamic, historically grounded political sociology that has been sadly missing in recent years."and#151;Doug McAdam, author of Freedom Summer
"Race, class, and local politics are key components of America's social fabric. On the basis of his outstanding scholarly research, Rhomberg examines the complex web of their interaction by focusing on one of the most conflicted urban scenes: Oakland, California; and taking a historical perspective on the evolving pattern of power struggles. This book will become required reading for students of urban politics."and#151;Manuel Castells, author of The Rise of the Network Society
and#147;No There There combines a sophisticated interpretation of political and sociological urban theory with rigorous historical researchand#133; An important and stimulating book.and#8221; and#150;Joseph A. Rodriguez, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Western Historical Quarterly
Review
and#8220;Well-structured and crisply argued. . . . An important intellectual contribution.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;An important read for understanding the future of race and politics in America.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;[An] important book. . . . Effectively challenges narratives that depict white supremacy as static and doomed to eradication by progress.and#8221;
Synopsis
How could Northern California, the wealthiest and most politically progressive region in the United States, become one of the earliest epicenters of the foreclosure crisis? How could this region continuously reproduce racial poverty and reinvent segregation in old farm towns one hundred miles from the urban core? This is the story of the suburbanization of poverty, the failures of regional planning, urban sprawl, NIMBYism, and political fragmentation between middle class white environmentalists and communities of color. As Alex Schafran shows, the responsibility for this newly segregated geography lies in institutions from across the region, state, and political spectrum, even as the Bay Area has never managed to build common purpose around the making and remaking of its communities, cities, and towns. Schafran closes the book by presenting paths toward a new politics of planning and development that weave scattered fragments into a more equitable and functional whole.
Synopsis
Challenged by Ku Klux Klan action in the '20s, labor protests culminating in a general strike in the '40s, and the rise of the civil rights and black power struggles of the '60s, Oakland, California, seems to encapsulate in one city the broad and varied sweep of urban social movements in twentieth-century America. Taking Oakland as a case study of urban politics and society in the United States, Chris Rhomberg examines the city's successive episodes of popular insurgency for what they can tell us about critical discontinuities in the American experience of urban political community.
Synopsis
This book looks beyond the headlines to uncover the controversial history of California's ballot measures over the past fifty years. As the rest of the U.S. watched, California voters banned public services for undocumented immigrants, repealed public affirmative action programs, and outlawed bilingual education, among other measures. Why did a state with a liberal political culture, an increasingly diverse populace, and a well-organized civil rights leadership roll back civil rights and anti-discrimination gains? Daniel Martinez HoSang finds that, contrary to popular perception, this phenomenon does not represent a new wave of "color-blind" policies, nor is a triumph of racial conservatism. Instead, in a book that goes beyond the conservative-liberal divide, HoSang uncovers surprising connections between the right and left that reveal how racial inequality has endured. Arguing that each of these measures was a proposition about the meaning of race and racism, his deft, convincing analysis ultimately recasts our understanding of the production of racial identity, inequality, and power in the postwar era.
Synopsis
"With narrative fluency and deftness, constructed on a bedrock of prodigious archival research, HoSang's book provides a sorely needed genealogy of the 'color-blind consensus' that has come to define race and recode racism within US politics, law and public policy. This will be a book that lasts."and#151;Nikhil Pal Singh, author of
Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy"An important analysis of both the exact contours of white supremacy and the failures of electoral anti-racism."and#151;George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness
"Racial Propositions brilliantly documents the history of race in California's post-World War II ballot initiatives to show that nothing is what it seems when it comes to race and politics in America's ethnoracial frontier. Daniel HoSang provides readers with a sharply focused interdisciplinary lens though which to see how the language and politics of political liberalism veil what are ultimately racialized ballot initiatives. If California is a harbinger for the rest of the country, then HoSang's tour de force is required reading for anyone interested how the United States will negotiate diversity in the 21st century."and#151;Tomand#225;s R. Jimand#233;nez, author of Replenished Ethnicity: Mexican Americans, Immigration, and Identity
About the Author
Daniel Martinez HoSang is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon.
Table of Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction: "Genteel Apartheid"
1. "We Have No Master Race": Racial Liberalism and Political Whiteness
2. "Racial and Religious Tolerance Are Highly Desirable Objectives": Fair Employment and the Vicissitudes of Tolerance, 1945and#150;1960
3. "Get Back Your Rights!" Fair Housing and the Right to Discriminate, 1960and#150;1972
4. "We Love All Kids": School Desegregation, Busing, and the Triumph of Racial Innocence, 1972and#150;1982
5. "How Can You Help Unite California?" English Only and the Politics of Exclusion, 1982and#150;1990
6. "They Keep Coming!" The Tangled Roots of Proposition 187
7. "Special Interests Hijacked the Civil Rights Movement": Affirmative Action and Bilingual Education on the Ballot, 1996and#150;2
8. "Dare We Forget the Lessons of History?" Ward Connerly's Racial Privacy Initiative, 2001and#150;2003
Conclusion: Blue State Racism
Acknowledgments
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index