Racist America: Roots, Current Realities and Future Reparations

TELL IT LIKE IT IS, JOE!! This is what I wanted to yell out loud as I read through this wonderful book. It is so refreshing, especially in these conservative times in which we live, to know that there are white men who are willing to speak honestly about racism and the way in which it pervades ALL aspects of American life. What I really like about this book is that Feagin presents information about prominent white historical figures (Thomas Jefferson, Richard Nixon and Charles Darwin, for example) that most white authors try to keep hidden from the public. For those who enjoyed reading this book, I recommend WHITE RACISM (also written by Joe Feagin), which I think is just as well written. Joe Feagin is an excellent writer and I love his books!

This is a really important book for white people in the United States to read. It is a history of their country they are NOT taught and retaught in their daily lives. It is written well and I would love to have one in my purse at all times to give out as needed.

If you're a racist, you'll hate this book. If you're an equality-loving person of goodwill who wants to understand how and why racism operates in America, you'll find this book to be extremely valuable. This is a bold, provocative, innovative, and insightful book. Professor Feagin walks us through the history of racism from its roots in Europe and colonial America to its current-day manifestations. He shows just how thoroughly racism has always permeated life in America since the anti-black views of America's Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and James Madison. Feagin also examines Reconstruction, the lynchings of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, the Jim Crow racism of the modern Civil Rights era, and the new "color-blind" racism of the post-Civil Rights period. Professor Feagin lays bare the economic, ideological, and political structure of American racism. In so doing he develops an anti-racist theory rooted not only in the latest empirical data but also in the current reality of racism in the U.S.This book is quite an eye-opener!

One reviewer practically foamed at the mouth ranting how Marxist and anti-White the author was so I expected some stereotypical book in which Whites are bashed, uniformly portrayed as evil, and the cause of all life's problems. Instead, I found an articulate and thoughtful academic approach to the historical roots of American racism, interesting anecdotes about systemic racism's "current realities" in everyday practice and possible anti-racist strategies and solutions. Feagin's ideological sympathies are clearly with the victims of racism but not, I think, to the extent that it distorts history or unfairly attacks one race. The book isn't about "attacking" one group unless you define attacking as recounting historical facts or current reality. So why did the other reviewer find it so offensive? The title - Racist America - implies to the superficial reader that all (White) Americans are racist and the subject - racism - is unpleasant and embarassing to the superficial reader ("Why not forget the bad and accentuate the positive?"). If you're reading a book, for example, on cancer, or poverty, or famine, you don't get angry, thrown down the book and say, "I don't have cancer. Most people aren't poor. Famines are rare," you recognize that that is the subject of the book. This book does not condemn America but its focus is on our national original sin and its enough to make anyone squeamish.

Racism is a fact of life in American society: it's practiced by all Americans of all colors. This explores its presence and how it's enacted, considering the economic, ideological and political structure of American racism. The analysis offers many thoughtful points about how racism has permeated the system.