An analysis of how the conditions of race and racism in our culture have changed in our time and what this means for our future. “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line,” W. E. B. Du Bois wrote in 1903, and his words have proven sadly prophetic. As we enter the twenty-first century, the problem remains—and yet it, and the line that defines it, have shifted in subtle but significant ways. This brief book speaks powerfully to the question of how the circumstances of race and racism have changed in our time—and how these changes will affect our future. Foremost among the book’s concerns are the contradictions and incoherence of a system that idealizes black celebrities in politics, popular culture, and sports even as it diminishes the average African-American citizen. The world of the assembly line, boxer Jack Johnson’s career, and The Birth of a Nation come under Thomas Holt’s scrutiny as he relates the malign progress of race and racism to the loss of industrial jobs and the rise of our modern consumer society. Understanding race as ideology, he describes the processes of consumerism and commodification that have transformed, but not necessarily improved, the place of black citizens in our society. As disturbing as it is enlightening, this timely work reveals the radical nature of change as it relates to race and its cultural phenomena. It offers conceptual tools and a new way to think and talk about racism as social reality. Praise for The Problem of Race in the Twenty-first Century “Debates about race often take the form of a mind game designed to establish whether or not a particular word or act is racially motivated . . . [This book] provides a compelling argument for rethinking our ideas about race.” —Frank Furedi, New Statesman “Holt rightly asserts that our racial legacy should be a point of departure—not a destination—in examining the enduring nature of racial enmity. As a nation and as individuals, we must imagine ourselves beyond, while remaining aware of, those forces that are at the root of the enmity.” —Vernon Ford, Booklist “[Readers] will benefit from Holt’s expert and careful examination of these “narratives of contradiction and incoherence” as he attempts to forecast the reigning racial ethos for the next millennium. . . . Holt writes in clear, precise prose . . . and makes an important contribution to both public and academic discussions of race and labor and their intersections in U.S. politics.” —Publishers Weekly

In the 21st century, new ethnic groups are forming faster than ever before and the role of race and ethnicity studies has evolved in response to this. From policy issues around housing and crime, through to debates about asylum and media representations, sociologists must encounter and explore a vast range of issues in this ever changing field. This book gives an overview of the most important topics that affect the making of race and ethnic relations in contemporary societies. It goes beyond general definitions to explain exactly how and what these issues and debates can tell us about modern society. Using research and statistics to shed light on the most cutting-edge issues, the book takes each major topic in turn and helps readers to think through race and ethnicity on the basis of the most recent thinking in the field. Each chapter explains a range of theoretical and conceptual perspectives, whilst approaching complex ideas in an accessible and insightful way. Written and edited by recognized experts in the field, Race and Ethnicity in the 21st Century will be an essential point of reference for researchers and practitioners and key reading for all students of race and ethnicity.

This collection reflects the still urgent project of historical recuperation, as well as an examination of literary representations and other cultural manifestations of the Black Diaspora. Disciplinary work within the boundaries of African American Studies has been enhanced by more general considerations of the history of "race" and racism in globalized contexts. The articles assembled here reflect recent empirical research as well as challenging theoretical considerations. Contributions address particular formations of racialized modernity owed to the impact of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery, and thus broaden the approach to the Middle Passage, to improve our understanding of it as a constitutive transatlantic phenomenon in the widest possible sense.

This collection brings together pedagogical memoirs on significant topics regarding teaching race in college, including student resistance, whiteness, professor identity, and curricula. Linking theory to practice, the essays create an accessible and useful way to look at teaching race for wide audiences interested in issues within education.

This work is a deconstruction of the discursive constructs of Frantz Fanon in his final work "The Wretched of the Earth" and their application to the reality of the 21st century in the neo-colonial world. These constructs are: decolonisation and violence, the nature of power and power relations of neo-colonial African states, the neo-colonial existential condition and the impact of the Algerian war of liberation on the psyche of Algerians. This deconstruction unearthed Fanon's gesture to the formulation of the discursive construct of the colonial-neo-colonial continuum and its pre-cursor the enslavement-colonialism continuum.

With case studies from across the country, in medium-sized and large cities, and mayors of various backgrounds, this volume provides an account of how different minority mayors have handled minority representation in historically majority Caucasian cities and what lessons academics and politicians can learn from them.

This book explores key economic problems and new policies for the global economy of the 21st century. The contributors discuss to what extent past policy errors were due to the incompetence of policymakers, and highlight problems including: international payments imbalances and currency crises, volatile security markets, inflation, achieving full employment, income distribution and alleviating individuals and nations of poverty.

The United States is experiencing remarkable demographic changes that are having an important impact on the American electorate. As the minority share of the voting-eligible population continues to grow, the political clout of non-Hispanic whites will further decline. The 2012 election demonstrated that the Democratic Party can secure an Electoral College victory even when it loses badly, in the aggregate, among non-Hispanic whites. This does not mean that white voters are unimportant, however. The political behavior of whites in the decades ahead will largely determine the direction of American politics. This book examines the political behavior of non-Hispanic whites. It considers the trends within the white vote, how white voters differ geographically, and the primary fault lines among white voters. It also examines how white political behavior changes in response to diversity. It considers whether or not the day is approaching when whites consolidate into a largely homogenous voting bloc, or whether whites will remain politically heterogeneous in the decades ahead Whereas other books have examined the political behavior of specific social classes within the non-Hispanic white community (working class whites, for example), this is the first book to examine whites as a whole, and provide a useful summary of recent trends within this group and thoughtful speculation about its future.

Retheorizing Race and Whiteness in the 21st Century examines the role whiteness and white identities play in framing and reworking racial categories, hierarchies and boundaries within the context of nation, class, gender and immigration. It takes as its theoretical starting point the understanding that whiteness is not, and nor has it ever been, a static uniform category of social identification. The scholarship in this book uses new empirical studies to show whiteness as a multiplicity of identities that are historically grounded, class specific, politically manipulated and gendered social relations that inhabit local custom and national sentiment. Contributors to this book examine a wide range of issues, yet all chapters are linked by one common denominator: they examine how power and oppression are articulated, redefined and asserted through various political discourses and cultural practices that privilege whiteness even when the prerogatives of the dominant group are contested. Retheorizing Race and Whiteness in the 21st Century is an important new contribution to the study of whiteness for academics, researchers, and advanced students of Ethnic Studies, Sociology, Political Science, and Ethnography. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.