Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life in The Majority Report Podcast Goodreads Group

Jul 02, 2020 Faaiz rated it really liked it

Shelves: political, historical, non-fiction, class, interesting, academic, race, racism, ideology-of-race, identity

This book is a collection of essays by the Fields sisters - one a historian and another a sociologist. Of course, as is often the issue with a book that's a compilation of essays written over a stretch of time, some essays are stronger, more relevant, more interesting and better written than others. Nevertheless, this book is quite a rewarding read, although I can see why for some, especially the better read on race and racism, this book may not seem like it's expounding new ideas.

The authors s This book is a collection of essays by the Fields sisters - one a historian and another a sociologist. Of course, as is often the issue with a book that's a compilation of essays written over a stretch of time, some essays are stronger, more relevant, more interesting and better written than others. Nevertheless, this book is quite a rewarding read, although I can see why for some, especially the better read on race and racism, this book may not seem like it's expounding new ideas.

The authors start off with a critique of the concept of race as something with a scientific or biological basis. They introduce their conception of what racecraft is - a pervasive ideology that is "collective yet individual, day-to-day yet historical, and consequential even though nested in mundane routine" and a "kind of fingerprint evidence that racism has been on the scene"; a kind of link between racism, an action, springing from the concept of "race". Racecraft is in the "circular logic of first defining certain characteristics as “racial,” then offering differences in those same characteristics as proof that the “races” differ".

What I really like about this book:
Its tone is acerbic and it has a no-nonsense attitude about doing away with and putting down the ridiculousness that is perpetuated in the name of race. Included among its ire are those that while paying lip service to the platitude "race is a social construction", still go on to uphold the ideology of race. I enjoyed that this book attempts to trace the origins of the concept of race as a social construction and its establishment - from slavery to Jim Crow, firmly in the materialist societal relations of power and attempts to clear some misconceptions - and in some cases, deliberate misconstructions - about the cause and effect, chicken-or-the-egg questions, of racism, white supremacy, slavery, segregation, and so on.

What the book should have done more of:
Bubbling underneath the surface is a certain annoyance with the modern-day conceptions of identity that serve to obscure and obfuscate the inequalities that exist in our society in ways that damage coalition building and visions of shared liberation and emancipation. I would have liked to see more on that from the authors. Additionally, I would have loved to read what the authors think about whether and what the limitations of rooting ones' "self-identity" in "race", as a matter of self-understanding and self-expression, are. Is there a futility here with "using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house" and to what extent if so? And the resulting implications if so?

What the book did not do so well:
Receding into the academic and abstract at times. Some essays are entirely academic and hence not as relevant to lay people. For example, chapter 5 "Origins of the New South and the Negro Question" is an analysis of C. Vann Woodward's book Origins of the New South and a sort of book review. Having never read Woodward's book, reading the author's engagement with the book was akin to watching two strangers talk about their night out together without you in front of you. A similar sentiment for the chapter on what Du Bois and Durkheim would say to one another if they had met, interesting for sure, but not the best in terms of learning more about the topic at hand.

All in all, an excellent book that is interesting, insightful, and most importantly subversive.

Please read something like this than White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. ...more

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