Race Matters

Book Description

With a new introduction, the groundbreaking classic Race Matters affirms its position as the bestselling, most influential, and most original articulation of the urgent issues in America?s ongoing racial debate.

Cornel West is at the forefront of thinking about race. In Race Matters he addresses a range of issues, from the crisis in black leadership and the myths surrounding black sexuality to affirmative action, the new black conservatism, and the strained relations between Jews and African Americans. He never hesitates to confront the prejudices of all his readers?or wavers in his insistence that they share a common destiny. Bold in its thought and written with a redemptive passion grounded in the tradition of the African-American church, Race Matters is a book that is at once challenging and deeply healing.

Customer Reviews:

Give thinking a chance.......2006-12-28

I am a West Reader so I may be a little bias on my review. Race Matters is a piece that takes the current position of many miniority races and forces them to relate to each other. The section on Malcolm and Black Rage hits it on the head. It has started my research on nihilism and allows the reader to jump into new areas of thought. It will expand your mind like all of West's works.

Race Matters.......2006-03-11

Excellent look at race issues in America that apply today even though the book was written more tha a decade ago.

Race matters to Cornel West..........2006-03-03

...because that's how he makes his money and fame. Without it, he'd be known for what he ultimately is: a poor charlatan posing as a "scholar."

Race Matters (Vintage).......2006-03-01

Race Matters is an excellent book! Cornel West is a brillant man and one of our great leaders.This book is a must read for any one seeking knowledge and truth.

Hard to Follow.......2006-02-07

I found this book hard to follow. His arguments weren't always clear and, honestly, I felt like he was using "big words" to impress his readers.
I'll give him one thing: passion. I could feel how passionate he was about his topic, but all in all a hard-to-read book.

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Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks
Book encourages reflection on recent events
Towards a Just Society
thanks bell hooks!
Can't believe this ever got published!

Where We Stand: Class Matters
bell hooks
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 041592913X

Book Description

Where We Stand is a powerful new book by one of America's most admired critics and writers. For years we have turned to bell hooks-feminist, social thinker, memoirist, teacher-for her deeply felt ideas on women, race, culture, sexuality, and more recently on love and children. Now Bell Hooks talks about class-the 'elephant in the room'-the subject we all know is central to our culture and its problems but that hasn't been given the attention it so desperately needs.
Why is it that the face of poverty in America is a black face, even though most of the thirty-six million poor in America are white? How do fantasies of wealth's power help keep the poor poor? What do black teens want, and how do they learn to want it? Are wealthy black Americans any more aware of class issues than wealthy whites? Why do we need so much money, after all?
Bell Hooks talks about these subjects in her own style. Drawing on both her roots in Kentucky and her adventures with Manhattan coop boards, Where We Standis a successful black woman's reflection-personal, straight forward, and rigorously honest-on how our dilemmas of class and race are intertwined, and how we can find ways to think beyond them.

Customer Reviews:

Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks.......2007-07-17

Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks

All books written by bell hooks are powerful, direct, and very brave. Exactly when I was hoping bell would write a book about class, I discovered this one. Her writings about love lead to exploration of capitalism and its social structure more in depth, to strengthen points about the ways class loyalties and antagonisms prevent love ethic from becoming embraced by the society as a whole.

What I especially appreciate in Where We Stand are the two quite extraordinary qualities: a) bell showed us that we can talk and write about class without using "post-modern" or difficult to comprehend terminology, and b) she is not afraid to call to action, to change this depressing and unjust, cruel and senseless system into "a world where we can all have enough to live fully and well."

She started the book with self-critique, almost apologizing for not having enough theoretical knowledge to talk about class issues. However, bell is able to discuss very different aspects of class, such as class ideology (or the dominant social ideology being the ideology of the ruling class), class consciousness of the working class and intellectuals, intersections of class, race and gender, crossing class boundaries, and a vision of a classless society--society--without class hierarchies or antagonistic classes.

I read somewhere that some book reviews called this book a "novel". Where We Stand is not a novel, but I prefer to see this as compliment. bell masterfully intertwined her personal experiences and her family stories into the general discussion about class. Her feminist methodology brings much needed approach and analysis of one indivisible social system that is at the same time patriarchal, capitalist/imperialist, and white supremacist on a global scale.

bell hooks is always brave and principled. Her integrity is intact as she writes about the most important issues of our time. In addition, we can witness that she lives according to her values. She is compassionate and openly declares her solidarity with the working class and all of the people that Marx called proletariat. bell chose to live on a smaller income, without security that institutions provide, and to live simply.
Not only are the topics that bell writes about revolutionary, but she herself lives as an intellectual capable of leading a revolutionary movement.

I expect some critics to say that all aspects of class are not explored in this book, nor are those discussed explored in depth. Some will be tempted to say that bell is using Marx's concepts and creating relatively new terminology, as would many say that Anthony Giddens (Capitalism and Modern Social Theory; Class, Power and Conflict) is very much influenced by Marx. I understand that this book is only her first step, an introduction to a number of explorations of class issues in the contemporary American society, as well as one of her first calls for unity and strong advocacy for abolition of class and all other hierarchies.

Considering much of hooks' social theory, I see most parallels with Erich Fromm's work. Fromm wrote about "productive love" and "productive work", but he was also a very sharp critic of capitalism, exploitation, and alienation from our basic human needs, arguing for "productive humanistic communitarian socialism". Very much influenced by Marx, Fromm's theory of class also focuses on raising individual, group, and social conciseness in order to change the society into a future form that would allow us "to be" instead of "to have" and fulfill our basic human needs.

In terms of style, bell's way of writing resembles Joanna Kadi's Thinking Class who reaffirmed that working class members of our society are among best thinkers and most important agents of social change.

Book encourages reflection on recent events.......2005-11-17

I started reading this book shortly before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and news clips began pouring in from New Orleans. More clearly than ever, I understood the need for books like Where We Stand to encourage us to think about issues of class in America and then take action in our own lives.

I read bell hooks because she challenges the notions I have from my white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist upbringing. Where We Stand continues in this tradition. While reflecting upon the events of her own life and her own actions, hooks is able to examine our culture while inviting us increase awareness of how issues of class impact our own lives. For example, while critically examining the influence of materialism in our society, hooks offers her own personal experience with owning a BMW and how her attitude toward the vehicle subtly affected her relationships with other people.

Anyone willing to examine how class, race, gender, and consumerism all collide will want to read this book.

Towards a Just Society.......2005-04-05

I recommend this book. This is the first bell hooks I have read, and was deeply impressed by her clear, rooted moral position on the state of American and global society. Her writing in this piece shifts from a narrative of her own history growing up in the South, to a present academic, political critique of today.
I found her writing fluid and her point of view significant. As a black woman in America and someone who has experienced lower and upper class existence and the according journey between them, her perspective is complex, making her voice deep and necessary.
In no way can I specify difference with this book. She calls for a morally just society, which denounces the consumerism that perpetuates exploitation, racism, sexism while it is advertised and fantasized about as a life pursuit. Seeing the current issue of Newsweek's cover story, titled "How to Win," regarding a CEO's expertise in making money and succeeding the "American way," immediately brought Where We Stand into consideration.
This book is a call to action, and an illumination of the depressing and unjust, cruel and foolish system which ignores and is afraid of reforming itself enough to allow for "a world where we can all have enough to live fully and well."
I particularly appreciated her chapters on living simply, and think it is an appropriate and bold call to make in a place where stuff and acquisition are social symbols of significance.
To conclude, I found this description of class from page 103, by Rita Mae Brown, to be important: "Class is much more than Marx's definition of relationship to the means of production. Class involves behavior, your basic assumptions, how you are taught to behave, what you expect from yourself and from others, your concept of a future, how you understand problems and solve them, how you think, feel, act."

thanks bell hooks!.......2004-03-23

Thanks bell hooks! I have never read a book that explained so clearly the feelings I've had growing up in a working class family and the struggles I've endured (even as a white girl). I sensed bell hooks compassion and spirituality throughout this book. I only wish that our political leaders and our religious leaders would take time to read it.

Can't believe this ever got published!.......2003-10-31

I read this book for my sociology class. While I agree completely that class matters I think Bell Hooks does an extremely poor job of explaining why. Throughout the novel I felt like I was reading a paper written by a ten year old. Things just don't make sense. Also, the way it's written is very subjective, taking away any credibility it might have had. She does make some good points but nothing that other books about the same subject don't make. It's not worth trudging through the repetative nonsense of the rest of the book. Don't waste your money, there are many GOOD books out there (try "Ain't no Makin it" By Jay MacLeod for a good book on same topic).

In the Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process 1: The Colonial Period (Race and the American Legal Process)

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A primer for slavery during the colonial period.
Bedrock. Foundation.

In the Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process 1: The Colonial Period (Race and the American Legal Process)
A. Leon Higginbotham
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195027450

Amazon.com

In this midst of heated, often poisonous, arguments about affirmative action, school busing, and race-based political redistricting, A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. provides a welcome voice of reason. The sequel to his acclaimed In the Matter of Color, published in 1978, Shades of Freedom is a history of American racial law from the 17th century to the present. This long and often dark chronology is examined with precision, providing Higginbotham ample space to air his own view, that America has come far but still has far to go. Higginbotham, the former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court Appeals for the Third Circuit and the winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, is unabashedly liberal, especially in wholeheartedly supporting the concept of political districts designed to create black majorities. His analyses, particularly of major decisions such as the 1857 Dred Scott case, are compelling and elegant. And his indignation is palpable.

Customer Reviews:

A primer for slavery during the colonial period........2005-04-04

In a matter of color discusses the legalities of slavery in the states of Virginia, New York, South Carolina, Georgia. and Pennsylvania during the colonial period. It reveals how laws contributed to inflicting injustice on millions of Americans, solely on the basis of their color. The State of Virginia, a model of agricultural and economic success, a leader for all the colonies played a major role in the ultimate institutionalization of slavery. The State of Massachusetts after numerous trepidations abolished slavery in 1783. The State of New York though not steeped in slavery exuded certain prejudices. Although "Free Blacks" might join the militia and buy real estate, Jews were barred from both. In South arolina, by 1708, less than 20 years after the decision to move from white indentured labor to black labor, black slaves out numbered white inhabitants. In the State of Georgia, the indentured slave system broke down. The need to increase the number of white residents and to assure an adequate and cheap labor supply caused the financing of transportation to Georgia of many free unindentured persons (called charity olonists)and granted them up to fifty aces of land. Another group of emigrants (called adventurers) paid their own passage and received up to 500 acres of land. In the State of Pennsylvania the destruction of slavery was achieved to a great extent through the private actions of Quakers and Germans freeing their slaves and cajoling their neighbors to act likewise.

The book's contents are well researched, with cases and legislation written to be understood. For many readers, even those well steeped in African-American studies or American History, or the law....this book will stir new passions.

Bedrock. Foundation........2000-02-08

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to embark on the serious study of racial idealogy here in America, especially as it pertains to the law. Higginbotham's work is widely quoted and referenced in other books that I've read. This book forms the bedrock and foundation for understanding "how" and "why" it was necessary to forge a wedge between poor whites and blacks, who together, often conspired to runaway from their master, and how black Americans gradually moved from a position of quasi-servitude to perpetual slavery. This book is phenonmenal. It truly is the bedrock of my collection of works on the subject.

Grace Matters: A True Story of Race, Friendship, and Faith in the Heart of the South

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Grace Matters
Grace Matters
The path to lasting change
So Honest a book!!
At last! the truth about interracial friendship

Grace Matters: A True Story of Race, Friendship, and Faith in the Heart of the South
Chris P. Rice
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0787957046

Amazon.com

Chris Rice, a columnist for the Christian Sojourner magazine, takes on a memoirist's voice as he builds a dramatic story of racial harmony. Grace Matters begins in the early 1980s as Rice takes on a daunting role--that of a white man working within a predominately black church to help heal racial tension in Jackson, Mississippi. As a new member of the Voice of Calvary Church, Rice attends one of his first meetings. Here is where he meets the man who will eventually become his co-author of the award-winning book More Than Equals:

Then Spencer Perkins rose from his seat at the back of the church ... Spencer's eyes narrowed. His voice was gruff, defiant and confident. "What I want to know," he said, "is, what are all you white people doin' here?" That's all he said.... All lessons about how to win friends and influence people went right out the window. With one quick sentence, Spencer Perkins iced over the sunny land of my racial idealism.

As this memoir unfolds, we are privy to a magnificent friendship between two men of different races and extremely different backgrounds who discover that they each have tough spiritual lessons to teach one another. Eventually the story pans outward from the fiery friendship, as the duo helps to build an inspirational and interracial church community that brings "a culture of grace" to an impoverished inner-city neighborhood. Few would have thought that this kind of racially inclusive Christianity could have been accomplished in the Deep South. Rice not only shows that it's been done, he offers a testament to how it can be done again and again. --Gail Hudson

Book Description

"Here is a real story of real people and real faith. The story of friendship between Chris Rice and my son Spencer and their work of racial reconciliation and healing represents the heart of the Christian witness. My prayer is that the 'seeds' of this story of struggle and hope they planted will spread and bloom and grow in the lives of many people." âJohn Perkins, chairman, Christian Community Development Association and author, Let Justice Roll Down

"Grace is the most potent counter force at work in our violent species, and our only hope. Chris Rice gives a very personal account, at once inspiring and disturbing, of its transforming power." â Philip Yancey, author, What's So Amazing About Grace?

"Chris Rice has a keen eye for detail and a gift for setting a scene. This remarkable, inspiring story he tells reads like a good novel. It is a story of powerful Christian faith, intense personal commitment, and maddening human frailty. But more than anything else, and though it ends in tragedy, this is a story of hope: My encounter with Grace Matters has left me daring to hope that, even at this late date, we Christians might yet live out the true meaning of our radical creed in regard to relations between blacks and whites in the United States." âGlenn C. Loury, director, Institute on Race and Social Division, Boston University

"In a rare and deeply significant way, Chris Rice honestly probes the difficult but essential journey toward genuine racial reconciliation. It is confessional, candid, and even painful as the author bares his soul and his struggles.... This is a book with a fundamental and hopeful message-that grace can become a way of life." âJim Wallis, editor, Sojourners and convener, Call to Renewal

"Grace Matters is an extraordinary love story that is improbable as it was difficult. That a black man and a white man might be joined in a common love of God in Mississippi defies the imagination. But Chris Rice has helped us see that friendshipâindeed a difficult friendshipâis possible just to the extent a community existed in which truth mattered. Hopefully this book will be read and read widely, not simply to inform us about 'race relations' but because the story told here is one of hope and perseverance that hopefully will make more friendships possible." âStanley Hauerwas, author of A Community of Character and named by Time magazine as America's Best Theologian

Customer Reviews:

Grace Matters.......2003-02-20

This is an important book about human relationships and how conditioning must be transcended to allow a new order of humanity to emerge. Chris's honesty is remarkable and refreshing. The forces against human beings coming together are big - the black/white racial issue just further highlights what most of us try to pretend isn't there. Their willingness to trust in God and something bigger than themselves because they know how important it is for the sake of humanity, is very moving and should not be missed. This is an unusual book because although the foundational faith is Christianity, the issues are human and can be appreciated by anyone interested in solving the complex issues of what it means to be a human being.

Grace Matters.......2003-02-20

The path to lasting change.......2002-11-23

Chris Rice is brutally vulnerable and honest about his attempts to achieve the goal of racial reconciliation in partnership with Spencer Perkins. And, while the goal is important, the means of achieving it takes center stage in this poignant and absorbing chronicle of life in an intentional biracial community. Chris and Spencer discover that, when it comes right down to it, the only way they can overcome their own personal hangups and self-centeredness, and achieve true reconciliation between them, is by fully accepting God's grace. As they accept God's grace, they become transformed people who are whole, healed, and capable of truly seeking the best for others. The book clearly documents the work of God in the deep, private recesses of peoples' lives. It should be read by anyone who wants to achieve lasting change in their own life and the world around them.

So Honest a book!!.......2002-11-15

What a tremendously honest book. There are no shortcuts to true racial reconciliation and justice. Attempts at shortcuts usually lead to a perpetuation of racial injustice or merely a reversal of who is oppressed. Reading "Grace Matters" clearly indicates this truism. Most of the books on race relations are dogmatic about the ultimate solutions there are to racial harmonty. This book is a more honest reflection of the struggles we will have to undergo so that racial reconciliation is possible. Rice does not make himself the "hero" of this book. He freely reveals the ugly side of himself. But just as important he does not deify Spencoer Perkins - his best friend in the book who is black - or blacks in general. This is a real book about real people.
If you want to just rely on those who pretend that they know all of the answers to racism, from color-blind whites to afrocentric blacks, then this book is not for you. The answers in this book are not offered through an unrealistic idealism but through the blood, sweat and tears that happen when people of different races really start working at racial healing. So if you want to gain a little sense of the type of struggle that we are going to have to undergo to eliminate racism then go get this book as soon as you can.

At last! the truth about interracial friendship.......2002-10-30

This memoir by Chris Rice is important, not because of the people involved, though they are in the forefront of evangelical ministry with the poor. It is important because for the first time someone is being brutally honest about what real relationships across the black-white chasm will cost and why they are worth the effort. This is no sugary, "Can't we just all get along" picture of the ideal "brotherhood of man." This is a chronicle of misunderstanding, miscommunication, determination, reconciliation and forgiveness. But finally, the story of Antioch Community and the friendship of Spencer Perkins and Christ Rice is about grace--God's grace working through flawed and struggling Christians who are radical enough to take the Sermon on the Mount as a call to lifestyle and mission.

Customer Reviews:

One more of Ruth Frankenberg's brilliant works, Recommended.......2007-08-12

One more of Ruth Frankenberg's brilliant works, I agree with the
Recommended

Also:

Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism
Living Spirit, Living Practice: Poetics, Politics, Epistemology
The Chicana/o Cultural Studies Forum: Critical and Ethnographic Practices
The Chicana/o Cultural Studies Reader
Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India

Thought Provoking and Necessary.......1999-03-03

White Women, Race Matters is one of the first books which takes on the monumental task of 'decentralizing' white culture. Through interviews with white women, the author describes, delineates and discusses not only 'whiteness' but how and why we (they) construct it. While this is an academic book, it would be beneficial reading for almost every American.

Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity

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A must read
Saved My Life

Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity
Brenda J. Allen
Manufacturer: Waveland Press, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

ASIN: 1577663047

Book Description

Many types of organizations recognize that they need to consider diverse groups to be competitive and achieve success. Dealing effectively with difference and embracing it as a positive force, rather than something to be shunned or feared, can help organizations achieve their goals. There are no clear-cut prescriptions for addressing issues related to difference, but Allen's innovative, interactive, approach to presenting matters of difference clearly spells out how constructions of social identities have impacted members of dominant and nondominant groups. Allen's exploration of social identity categories and how discourse has affected our perceptions of others, and her focus on organizations to illustrate her points, opens the door to understanding and valuing difference as a positive, enriching feature of society. This text is very user-friendly and includes questions at the end of each chapter to stimulate reflection, critical thinking, recognition, and an awareness of possibilities for change.

Customer Reviews:

A must read.......2006-07-25

Difference Matters is an excellent, accessible read. Inclusion of statistics, examples, and personal experience provided compelling evidence to support the social constructivist perspective of identity. I recommend this book for every American.

Saved My Life.......2005-11-22

This book saved my life in regard to succintly putting together all of the ideas why and how "difference does matter". I used this book as guidance through my look at communication, especially communication with other cultures, especially my own culture. Well written and can be read and understood by everyone.

Media Matters: Race and Gender in U.S. Politics

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balanced analysis
Thought provoking, well written

Media Matters: Race and Gender in U.S. Politics
John Fiske
Manufacturer: University of Minnesota Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0816624631

Customer Reviews:

balanced analysis .......2006-02-03

The timeliness of Fiske's book is undimmed by this year being 2006. Written in 1996, it discusses seminal cultural events in the US, mostly in the earlier part of the decade. Such as the Rodney King video and the subsequent Los Angeles race riot of 1992. Or the OJ Simpson trial just shortly thereafter.

His analysis seems balanced and commendably dispassionate. Especially when you consider that he wrote this with the riots still fresh in memory, and just after the conclusion of the OJ trial. Of course, it is not just the events, but perhaps equally an analysis of how the media portrayed the happenings, that figure significantly in the book.

Despite "gender" in the title, the book is mostly about race.

Thought provoking, well written.......2000-04-15

John Fiske is a professor at the University of Wisconson-Madison and has done a fair bit of research concerning culture, its portrayal in the media, and its effects. This book, (Media Matters) takes a different perspective and does a good job of exploring what causes political change, how that political change affects people and the role that the media and dominant culture plays in this process. Fiske does a good job of explaining his position and backs up his writings with examples that most poeple can understand and relate to. Fiske has written many books concerning popular culture and the effects of television on culture and many of those same concepts carry over to this book. If you have read and enjoyed his other writings, then I think you'll find that this book follows in the same tradition.

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Bell Curve beat him to the punch, overall ineffective.
Fascinating book that is well done and thought provoking
A Masterpiece Book Reissued

Why Race Matters
Michael Levin
Manufacturer: New Century Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0965638359

Product Description

Michael Levins 1997 masterpiece, Why Race Matters, quickly became a classic, and just as quickly went out print. Used copies of the hardcover edition have sold for up to $500.00. New Century Foundation is proud to offer this affordable softcover edition. It includes every word of the original, plus a new foreword by Jared Taylor.

Customer Reviews:

Bell Curve beat him to the punch, overall ineffective........2007-07-11

As an inner city African American school teacher I feel that Mr. Levin made several valid points in his book but also made several laughable factual mistakes trying to prove his points.
Pros
Poor African Americans have been doing a poor job raising their children. Too many teenage African Americans I encounter have no goals and they have no problem resolutions skills.
African Americans are scoring lower on standardize exams and it's hard for me to counter this claim. Mr. Levin claims its 100% genetic but after teaching in the poor areas of the South Bronx there seems to be a problem with the culture of African Americans, no one seems to value an education until after they have been to prison.

Value system of African Americans is non-existent and the high incarceration rate proves this true. It seems that African American resemble the European gypsies where thievery and bravado is celebrated.
African Americans are overly represented on welfare and we use slavery as crutch for not succeeding in life.
Lack of entrepreneurial spirit is the main reason why African Americans are not going anywhere financially. Jewish, Arab and Korean store owner are sucking the life blood from these poor neighborhoods.
Whites do have a right to be wary of teenage blacks, we are committing too many of the street crimes for us to expect otherwise.
Cons
Civil War was not fought to free enslaved blacks; Mr. Levin is an educated man he should know better. President Lincoln and the majority of White Americans didn't care if slavery existed or not, the Civil War was fought to maintain the union and the idea of "majority rules." During the civil war tens of thousands of whites rioted in NYC killing thousands of blacks on sight because they did not want to join the union army. Mr. Levin is mistaken when he states that blacks benefited from the benevolence of whites. To date poverty among whites is highest in the former slave holding states; former slave states have the lowest capital reserves and have the highest crime rates per capita. You can not enslave a man without enslaving yourself.
Mr. Levin did a poor job comparing the higher IQs of northern blacks vs. southern blacks. After many studies researchers realized there's no correlation between high IQ blacks and the amount of white ancestry they may have. There's just as many lighter skinned blacks as darker skinned blacks in prison. Also, southern blacks are more likely to have whiter ancestry compared to northern blacks. Mr. Levin can just look outside of his door at City University and see all the Caribbean and African blacks who are graduating from City College and they have the lowest amount of white ancestry.
Mr. Levin totally misrepresented the problems of Haiti. Darker skinned, escaped slaves voodoo priests not mulattos started the Haitian revolution. Many of the roads, bridges and irrigation systems built by France where limited and where mostly destroyed in the struggle for independence. Haiti became desperately poor after they paid Napoleon 150 million gold francs in order to stop the war and after the USA started, a blockade that lasted for 50 years after the slaves won their freedom. USA put mulattos in charge after they left in 1934 and Haiti has been fighting /w this mulatto class for the last 70 years and the Republicans always favors this group. Haiti and some countries in Africa suffer from rampant corruption, which makes running a country and receiving initial foreign investment impossible. Places like the Congo and Nigeria have plenty of natural resources but they only benefit white Europeans and their local black cronies. Please read Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost", it shows how colonism made Europe rich and left the former colonized people fighting with one another for the scraps.
Mr. Levin failed to mention that remedial courses where ended at many City University colleges but the number of minorities actually increased.
Mr. Levin easily over looks that nearly 40% of all movie tickets are sold to blacks and Africans Americans watch a higher percentage of TV; this is the main reason why African Americans are over represented in movies and television. TV shows and movies without any blacks actors are usually less profitable.
The higher IQ scores of Whites definitely come from Jews & Nordic whites and not Irish & Italian whites. The Advance Placement classes I have taught, Jews & Nordic whites are definitely over-represented. Nevertheless, between the same lower IQ Irish & Italians vs. lower IQ Latinos & Blacks, the former are more likely to be in prison and on welfare.
Conclusions
I first encountered Mr. Levin in the earlier 90's, I was trying to listen to his speech to a mostly mixed audience at a NYC college and he was chased off the stage by several angry black men. I promised myself after that day not to act and think like those men that rushed the stage. As for Mr. Levin's book it should be required reading for all African Americans, it shows the blinding, pure hatred most whites feel for blacks and how quickly they will use any facts to sustain their hatred and how our culture, overall is hurting ourselves.

Fascinating book that is well done and thought provoking.......2007-01-04

The facts and their implications are a tough pill to swallow, but one that we are swallowing anyway, so best be armed with the truth.

A Masterpiece Book Reissued.......2006-11-17

Philosopher Michael Levin has delivered one of the most authoritative and incisive treatises on the importance of race ever written. Why Race Matters is must reading for anyone interested in the debates on race, IQ, crime, welfare, affirmative action, and multiculturalism. Levin cross-examines the stockpiles of statistical data, psychological test scores, and behavioral genetic analyses to brilliantly illuminate the logical pitfalls and stumbling blocks in so much of what has been written on the subject. His powerful logic digs deep and his courageous inferences vault forward. With panache and the occasional snort of humor, Levin seems to be always bang on target. I especially recommended this book when it first came out in conjunction with my own Race, Evolution, and Behavior but now I should definitely add Richard Lynn's two new books (2006) as well.

Darkness Matters : Understanding How NeuroMelanin Impacts Health, Disease, Memory, Movement, and Consciousness

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Darkness Matters : Understanding How NeuroMelanin Impacts Health, Disease, Memory, Movement, and Consciousness
Ann Brown , Richard D. King , and Timothy Moore
Manufacturer: African American Images
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0974900036

Book Description

Asking the question, Are people with dark skin truly different?, these essays consider the history, science, and psychology of melanin. With contributions from such noted writers and scholars as Hunter Adams, Ann Brown, Richard King, and Owen Moore, these writings explore the history of people with surface skin melanin. The genetic influence of melanin on culture and learning is also addressed, with a specific look at the unfair treatment of African American children in schools that has led to poor IQ test scores and disproportionate numbers of African American children in special education classes.

Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women's Consciousness

Average customer rating:

peoples views, but not enogh facts.
Lacks Sociological Insight
A fascinating, informative look at hair styles & ideologies.
Ethnographically Informed Research

Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women's Consciousness
Ingrid Banks
Manufacturer: NYU Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Accessories:

Remington Titanuim Precision Pro Deluxe Hair Cut Kit - 25 Piece

ASIN: 0814713378
Release Date: 2000-10-01

Book Description

"Introduces the audience to consider the value of the insider/outsider relationship in another's culture"
—National Women's Studies Association Journal

Long hair in the 60s, Afros in the early 70s, bobs in the 80s, fuschia in the 90s. Hair is one of the first attributes to catch our eye, not only because it reflects perceptions of attractiveness or unattractiveness, but also because it conveys important political, cultural, and social meanings, particularly in relation to group identity. Given that mainstream images of beauty do not privilege dark skin and tightly coiled hair, African American women's experience provides a starkly different perspective on the meaning of hair in social identity."
--National Women's Studies Association Journal

"Grab your copy at your local bookseller and get hip to what your hair is saying to others with regards to beauty, culture and politics. Learn about how culture has a love for coifs, because after all, so do you!"
—Sophisticate's Black Hair Styles GuideDrawing on interviews with over 50 women, from teens to seniors, Hair Matters is the first book on the politics of Black hair to be based on substantive, ethnographically informed research. Focusing on the everyday discussions that Black women have among themselves and about themselves, Ingrid Banks analyzes how talking about hair reveals Black women's ideas about race, gender, sexuality, beauty, and power. Ultimately, what emerges is a survey of Black women's consciousness within both their own communities and mainstream culture at large.

Customer Reviews:

peoples views, but not enogh facts........2004-06-22

This book is like having group therapy or interviewing other women,but it is not all black women's views.I am reviewng it because I think it is worth a read.

As you may or may not know African coily hair is quite unique in vision, texture, behaviour and probably in chemical make up too. Coily haired women around the world, go to the most extremes in terms of spending.
(Spending time, spending pain and the spending price to have African coily hair styled)
A hairstyle that we believe looks good or will help us to become socially and economically advanced.
Or maybe for our own self-esteem and maybe to attract the charms of a love interest.
Either way, psychologically and philosophically I believe that your hair is a reflection of the state of your consciousness, your internal beliefs and your relationship with the world.
What about exploring physics through african hair?
For example how much pressure, gravity and tension and tearing do we put our hair through by combing it?

let alone excessive harsh combing.
Mathematically speaking how many of you readers can tell me how many curls/coils per inch your hair has, and does it vary in coil and moisture?
Next question:When does the nature of the hair change and why?
(i know it does!)
It seems to me all these books on afro hair are good and I welcome it, but we still need to be more informed and they all seem to need better editing, just like Black American beauty magazines.I must campaign for better grammar and less air brushed photos!!!
It is as if we like to see ourselves falsely rather than the reality of what we are...
Black women need to demand more scientific reasoning from our books and be less competitive over black men which only fuels their egos and as a result probably creates more baby-mothers!!!
Sorry but I had to vent out my opinions.

I give this book four stars for the effort and time invested as a writer I know it takes time...
I maintain that it is still worth reading,more than any carcinogenic chemical so called hair treatment that you pay for.

Anyway what do I know I am a black african british woman!!!!
Most of you Americans think we in Britain have no trains or any kind of progressive development!!!
Anyway if I wrote my book answering my questions that I put to you how many of you would buy it?

Lacks Sociological Insight.......2000-07-06

This book is worth reading for those who want to learn more about the importance of hair style, color, and texture among African American women. While I doubt that many Blacks are unaware of the "hair thing", some might benefit from this book because it gives voice to what many see as a central frustration and challenge. Non-blacks with little intimate contact with Black women (and thus are unaware of the issues treated here) might find the book informative.

The main weakness of the book is that it lacks a powerful sociological analysis of the issue. The book is basically descriptive, and Banks lets the women she interviewed do much of the talking. The problem is, few of these informants could offer much insight into why hair is so central within the Black community. Further, Banks seems only superficially aware of the large body of literature on colorism that bears on this topic. For example, she asserts that hair is more important than skin color in determining who gets what in US society, a claim that is at odds with virtually all previous work with which I am aware.

All in all, there is nothing new or fresh here, although I did enjoy the photographs featuring various hair styles.

A fascinating, informative look at hair styles & ideologies........2000-05-04

This surveys beauty and black women alike, considering hair politics in black communities and examining the evolution of hair styles as symbols for changing ideologies. Contrasts between hair and blackness draw some intriguing conclusions.

Ethnographically Informed Research.......2000-04-29

You will want to buy this book (or at least skim through it), especially if you are Black/African-American and female. I say this because the author devotes a significant portion of the book sharing the dialogues from the interviews she had when she conducted her "ethnographically informed research" with African American females. As a African-American professor, who is also investigating communicative aspects of hair, I found Bank's book especially helpful because while indeed she covers numerous theoretical, feminist, social and cultural epistemologies, she also "breaks it down." So, do know that you do not have to be in college or a college graduate to appreciate this book. However, given that I am a professor, I do plan on using it as supplemental reading for future graduate and undergraduate courses because Banks has found a way to write about her scholarship in lay people's terms. In fact, the true "beauty" of Hair Matters is reading the responses from the girls and women, seeing the accompanying photos and other tidbits that are offered. Hair Matters is valueable, interesting, compelling, as well as thought provoking...definately a conversation starter. In short, this book is extremely easy reading, accessible regardless of ethnicity or gender and certainly not boring! In my opinion, I think others will be interested in reading this book cover to cover because it is unquestionably unlike any other current books on hair available on the market.

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