This book analyzes and interrogates the complex ways that race, racial identity, racism, and racial justice are represented, experienced, and addressed in American society, politics, and culture. Drawing from research, narratives, theory, institutional and governmental policies, and media stories, authors illustrate how centuries of racism and white privilege fuel the dynamics of racial inequality today, and created contemporary norms influencing narratives of identity, belonging, racism, and racial justice in rapidly changing contexts. Topics explored include the nature of racial choice, tran ... More

This book analyzes and interrogates the complex ways that race, racial identity, racism, and racial justice are represented, experienced, and addressed in American society, politics, and culture. Drawing from research, narratives, theory, institutional and governmental policies, and media stories, authors illustrate how centuries of racism and white privilege fuel the dynamics of racial inequality today, and created contemporary norms influencing narratives of identity, belonging, racism, and racial justice in rapidly changing contexts. Topics explored include the nature of racial choice, transracial adoption, the connections between the deaths of Black people from police violence and the deaths of economically disadvantaged whites due to despair, the conflation of race and nationality in census policies, white perceptions of wokeness and racial justice, and resistance to applying intersectionality to race and racism. The volume also examines Islamic ideologies in Black oral traditions and Hip Hop, and African cultural change and belonging through Black histories of racial mixture with Native Americans. Intersectionality receives significant attention in chapters centering the lives of GLBTQ People of Color and People of Color who belong to communities of faith marginalized in the United States. Throughout the volume, analyses are grounded in theoretical, historical, and where appropriate legal sources; however, these areas provide the context for the central focus on how race informs contemporary and emerging issues. In addition, authors use multiple specific examples and accessible language to illustrate how the experiences of people marginalized by race can inform new theories, policies, and practices related to identity, community, and social justice.