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The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures
The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy
Like the canaries that alerted miners to a poisonous atmosphere, issues of race point to underlying problems in society that ultimately affect everyone, not just minorities. Addressing these issues is essential. Ignoring racial differences--race blindness--has failed. Focusing on individual achievement has diverted us from tackling pervasive inequalities. Now, in a powerful and challenging book, Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres propose a radical new way to confront race in the twenty-first century.
Given the complex relationship between race and power in America, engaging race means engaging standard winner-take-all hierarchies of power as well. Terming their concept "political race," Guinier and Torres call for the building of grass-roots, cross-racial coalitions to remake those structures of power by fostering public participation in politics and reforming the process of democracy. Their illuminating and moving stories of political race in action include the coalition of Hispanic and black leaders who devised the Texas Ten Percent Plan to establish equitable state college admissions criteria, and the struggle of black workers in North Carolina for fair working conditions that drew on the strength and won the support of the entire local community.
The aim of political race is not merely to remedy racial injustices, but to create truly participatory democracy, where people of all races feel empowered to effect changes that will improve conditions for everyone. In a book that is ultimately not only aspirational but inspirational, Guinier and Torres envision a social justice movement that could transform the nature of democracy in America.
Given the complex relationship between race and power in America, engaging race means engaging standard winner-take-all hierarchies of power as well. Terming their concept "political race," Guinier and Torres call for the building of grass-roots, cross-racial coalitions to remake those structures of power by fostering public participation in politics and reforming the process of democracy. Their illuminating and moving stories of political race in action include the coalition of Hispanic and black leaders who devised the Texas Ten Percent Plan to establish equitable state college admissions criteria, and the struggle of black workers in North Carolina for fair working conditions that drew on the strength and won the support of the entire local community.
The aim of political race is not merely to remedy racial injustices, but to create truly participatory democracy, where people of all races feel empowered to effect changes that will improve conditions for everyone. In a book that is ultimately not only aspirational but inspirational, Guinier and Torres envision a social justice movement that could transform the nature of democracy in America.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 25, 2009
"Racism locates the dominant explanation for the depressed socioeconomic, health, and educational condition of people of color and their over-representation in the criminal justice system in the character of the people themselves, rather than in the structures of power that create the conditions of their lives (292).
This book presents an elegant and effective deconstruction of institutionalized oppression. The invocation of the miner's canary as a metaphor is brilliant. It foregrounds a preoccupation with blaming the canary rather than investigating the mine, especially for those who are racially marginalized, and it extends the struggle beyond the most vulnerable to all of those concerned with social injustice in the larger community.
This book presents an elegant and effective deconstruction of institutionalized oppression. The invocation of the miner's canary as a metaphor is brilliant. It foregrounds a preoccupation with blaming the canary rather than investigating the mine, especially for those who are racially marginalized, and it extends the struggle beyond the most vulnerable to all of those concerned with social injustice in the larger community.
July 9, 2018
Great ideas about race and power, but very dense and a bit repetitive.
October 19, 2014
I liked portions of this book a great deal. Its critique of colorblindness was well done. The good professors suggest that neoconservatives have long been laying the groundwork to reject race as a meaningful category. That effort claims noble roots: the attempt to eliminate the explicit legal apparatus of institutionalized racism. It also embraces what the United States Supreme Court ignored in Plessy: that putting formally neutral laws on the books that themselves stigmatize is racist. Go them.
What that neoconservative critique assumes out of existence is that racism didn’t and doesn’t just express itself through laws on the books; it’s woven into the way burdens and benefits of life in America are distributed (though, they acknowledge, it is not the only thread in the tapestry). The first step seems naïve but mostly harmless (though a little high handed; who is some random political theorist to tell folks what part of their identity is important to them?). But the second step, the second less harmless. The second step makes racism a personal aberration, the fault, as far as I can tell, equally of the intentional deliberate racist and those lives have been made harder by our heartbreaking history. Or, as the book puts it dryly, “The discourse of colorblindness focuses on managing the appearance of formal equality without worrying overmuch about the consequences of real-world inequality. Proponents of a colorblind ethos define freedom and equality exclusively in terms of the autonomous – some would say atomized – individual. The individual has no historical antecedents, no important social relationships, and no political commitments.” (39). And that “approach not only locates the problem in the individual but it locates the remedy there as well. All that is necessary to overcome racism is for an individual to become better informed about different racial groups.” (43). “If we do not shift the locus of conversation to make visible the effects of such deeply held but unspoken attitudes, they will tend to normalize inequality. We will all then tend to normalize inequality.” (44).
It’s like they knew what Bill O’Reilly would say on The Daily Show 12 years later, full throatedly denying there is such a thing as white privilege, or certain talking heads blaming the unarmed victims of police shootings for their own deaths, or the current debate about the proper basis for Batson challenges.
Its description of the problem was great; its suggestion for the solution lost me a bit. The authors recommend embracing magical realism and something they call “political race” as a countermove, a piece I didn’t really understand. Yes, in a democracy coalitions are necessary, and imagination is powerful, but I didn’t really get what that means in practice.
It was eerie reading explications and rejections of arguments the United States Supreme Court would embrace not that long afterwards.
Not sure it wouldn’t have been better as a set of essays than presented as a single text, but it was a good book, worth reading.
What that neoconservative critique assumes out of existence is that racism didn’t and doesn’t just express itself through laws on the books; it’s woven into the way burdens and benefits of life in America are distributed (though, they acknowledge, it is not the only thread in the tapestry). The first step seems naïve but mostly harmless (though a little high handed; who is some random political theorist to tell folks what part of their identity is important to them?). But the second step, the second less harmless. The second step makes racism a personal aberration, the fault, as far as I can tell, equally of the intentional deliberate racist and those lives have been made harder by our heartbreaking history. Or, as the book puts it dryly, “The discourse of colorblindness focuses on managing the appearance of formal equality without worrying overmuch about the consequences of real-world inequality. Proponents of a colorblind ethos define freedom and equality exclusively in terms of the autonomous – some would say atomized – individual. The individual has no historical antecedents, no important social relationships, and no political commitments.” (39). And that “approach not only locates the problem in the individual but it locates the remedy there as well. All that is necessary to overcome racism is for an individual to become better informed about different racial groups.” (43). “If we do not shift the locus of conversation to make visible the effects of such deeply held but unspoken attitudes, they will tend to normalize inequality. We will all then tend to normalize inequality.” (44).
It’s like they knew what Bill O’Reilly would say on The Daily Show 12 years later, full throatedly denying there is such a thing as white privilege, or certain talking heads blaming the unarmed victims of police shootings for their own deaths, or the current debate about the proper basis for Batson challenges.
Its description of the problem was great; its suggestion for the solution lost me a bit. The authors recommend embracing magical realism and something they call “political race” as a countermove, a piece I didn’t really understand. Yes, in a democracy coalitions are necessary, and imagination is powerful, but I didn’t really get what that means in practice.
It was eerie reading explications and rejections of arguments the United States Supreme Court would embrace not that long afterwards.
Not sure it wouldn’t have been better as a set of essays than presented as a single text, but it was a good book, worth reading.
July 21, 2020
The present race-based revolution inspired me to seek out literature aimed to deepen my understanding of the systemic racism people of color face. After googling "anti-racist book lists" I kept coming to, The Miner's Canary, which to me is a sign that I should start here.
Now, I was expecting an autobiographical account or some sort of personal development book; however, this was clearly not the goal of the authors. Instead they laid out the systemic nature of racism and outlined ideas of how to change things locally and nationally. Occasionally the book got into some legal terminology/workings that were difficult to understand, but so much new information I was unaware of was also presented. My favorite parts of the book were the vignettes interwoven with the chapters that mixed life-experiences with racism and local and national movements the impacted change.
My belief is that influential books, like influential people, fall into our lives unexpectedly. The Miner's Canary followed suit in being a totally unexpected lesson that I am glad I heard
Now, I was expecting an autobiographical account or some sort of personal development book; however, this was clearly not the goal of the authors. Instead they laid out the systemic nature of racism and outlined ideas of how to change things locally and nationally. Occasionally the book got into some legal terminology/workings that were difficult to understand, but so much new information I was unaware of was also presented. My favorite parts of the book were the vignettes interwoven with the chapters that mixed life-experiences with racism and local and national movements the impacted change.
My belief is that influential books, like influential people, fall into our lives unexpectedly. The Miner's Canary followed suit in being a totally unexpected lesson that I am glad I heard
Read
July 10, 2020Sorry for not returning your Copy Professor Torres. But the book was great, some of the most amazing insight into black/white binary that we've created in the county. Also, amazing work on creating a theoretical lens for said binary.
Want to Read
December 17, 2019recommended by author of Troublemakers
July 6, 2009
The content deserves four stars, but since reading this book was a little like wading knee-deep through a swamp I have demoted it to three stars.
The information was great, and I like the main idea of using a race-conscious lens through which to analyze and then transform social, political and legal structures and power distribution. The breakdown of the different dimensions of power was great and offers a very useful framework to use when discussing and analyzing power.
The downside: the book's major concept of "political race" is not actually defined until about 100 pages in, and even then the definition was not entirely adequate. The book did a lot of describing aspects of the political race project and what it was meant to accomplish, but I am still left with some confusion about what exactly this term means. Other ideas are tediously over-explained. Though the ideas themselves are engaging, the writing is stiff and boring, making this book a chore to read. Given the importance of the ideas in this book, it seems like a more engaging book would be a more effective tool for social change. 'Cause it doesn't matter how spot-on you are if no one reads your book.
The information was great, and I like the main idea of using a race-conscious lens through which to analyze and then transform social, political and legal structures and power distribution. The breakdown of the different dimensions of power was great and offers a very useful framework to use when discussing and analyzing power.
The downside: the book's major concept of "political race" is not actually defined until about 100 pages in, and even then the definition was not entirely adequate. The book did a lot of describing aspects of the political race project and what it was meant to accomplish, but I am still left with some confusion about what exactly this term means. Other ideas are tediously over-explained. Though the ideas themselves are engaging, the writing is stiff and boring, making this book a chore to read. Given the importance of the ideas in this book, it seems like a more engaging book would be a more effective tool for social change. 'Cause it doesn't matter how spot-on you are if no one reads your book.
August 7, 2016
This book is far too complex to summarize in a few sentences. So I'll just suggest people read it! It offers a smart, critical look at the nature of power and the realities of race in the United States, offering radical ideas for transforming our notions of power, race, and the effective exercise of democracy. It also offers an excellent definition of racism that emphasizes its institutional, rather than individual, manifestation(s): "Racism is acquiescence in and accommodation to racialized hierarchies governing resource distribution and resource generation. Racism treats the inequitable distribution, generation, and transfer or resources as normal, natural, and fair." I'll be digesting the many insights Guinier and Torres offer in this work for some time to come.
Currently Reading
February 22, 2010Chapter 4 "Rethinking Conventions of Zero-Sum Power" is what's up! Really talks about insider/outsider dynamics and what happens to those of us on the inside trying hard to effectively make change within the system.
November 6, 2008
A thoughtful discussion of structural racism with tangible examples that stick. Not many non-fiction books can be described as a page-turner, but this one is.
April 29, 2016
Like a miner's canary, I can feel the poison causing the bird to die with each proceeding chapter.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews