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Thinking about Race: 1st (First) Edition
All introductory and ethics courses are taught either historically or topically with professors selecting anything from a single text to several primary source paperbacks. This text is designed for almost any student at almost any school. It addresses a topic of high interest to students and professors and is extremely timely. This text would be most likely be used in conjunction with at least one other book. Zack in particular is ideally suited for this work as she herself is of mixed race.
- GenresRacePhilosophyNonfiction
Paperback
Published January 1, 1998
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About the author
Naomi Zack
39 books13 followersNaomi Zack is a professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon. She is a prolific author, having published seven books in addition to a large number of papers and contributed chapters in feminist ethics, particularly in areas having to deal with race or disaster.
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April 20, 2026
IDEAS AND EXERCISES FOR CONSIDERATION AND GROUP DISCUSSIONS
Naomi Zack (b. 1944) is professor of Philosophy at Lehman College (CUNY); she formerly taught at the University of Albany, and the University or Oregon.
She wrote in the Preface to this 1998 book, “This book is meant to be a toolbox for thinking rationally and reasonably about race… I hope it will be useful for … anyone who wants to calmly reflect, talk, and write about the topics and problems concerning race that confront us at the close of the 20th century in the United States.” (Pg. x)
She continues, “My students and my sons are part of the generation that will have well-formed memories of the 20th century as they reach full adulthood in the 21st. W.E.B. Du Bois’s prediction that the main social problem in the 20th century would involve race has proved true. It may also hold for the 21st century. But it will not hold for the next millennium. This generation of my sons and students is destined to span two millennia. They have the right stuff to do that: speed, strength, talent, ambition, and desire for all of the good things this earth still has to offer. The complaint of some members of my generation that they are not humanitarians and scholars obscures the ease with which these young adults learn what they need to know. As they come into their full powers, their compassion will flower. Some of them will love truth or beauty for its own sake. They will honor us.” (Pg. xii)
She explains, “The notion of human races as distinct biological breeds has no basis in physical science. In contemporary society, especially in educated or ‘enlightened’ subcultures, there is broad agreement that the findings of the physical sciences are the most reliable source of information about physical reality. To say that race in the physical sense had no foundation in science it to say that race in the physical sense is not real. Since by race, most Americans mean something physical, the lack of a foundation in science means that race is not real. Period.” (Pg. 10)
She asserts, “If people who think they are monoracial have a right to racial identities, then so ought people who are BIRACIAL or MULTIRACIAL have that right. To deny mixed-race adults or children identities as mixed is to discriminate against them on racial grounds. Such discrimination is morally wrong, and on that basis, it should be illegal. However, so long as the existence of mixed race is not recognized by law, legally speaking, there is no discrimination.” (Pg. 22) [By the way, Zack’s mother was Jewish, and her father Black and Native American.]
She notes, “Ethnicity is a characteristic of distinct groups that may or may not be geographically united and that can be identified both across and within nations. For example, Jews, as an ethnic group, have always been dispersed among different nations throughout their history, constituting a ‘diaspora.’ … At this time in human history, there are very few ethic groups that have no members who have left their ancestral homelands.” (Pg. 29)
She states, “The meaning or concept of racism for the majority of white Americans refers to hatred, hostility, contempt and harmful intentions in individuals’ hearts and minds. According to this definition, a racist is someone who has ill will toward other races and expresses that ill-will in speech and action, through racial slurs, insults based on race, unfair behavior based on race and unprovoked violent behavior based on the race of the victims. Racists in this classic sense would include Ku Klux Klan members, Nazis and neo-Nazis, and anyone else who … advocates harming people of other races. Classic racism is conscious and deliberate.” (Pg. 40-41)
She points out, “According to the taxonomy of race, over three-quarters of the world’s population is nonwhite: Asian, Indian, black and mixed. Even if one begins by viewing races as no more than biological types, it immediately becomes clear, on a global socioeconomic basis, that racial difference is not mere biological variety. Racial differences are accompanied by significant differences in wealth, military power, comfort in lifestyle, access to the most up-to-date consumer products, and technological expertise. While the racial taxonomy is superficial and even false in biological terms, it is a remarkably accurate device for picking out the socioeconomic differences. That this should be so is the result of historical events: the descendants of the groups of people whose members invented the racial taxonomy according to which they were white, are now the people who have the most wealth, power, possessions, and technology. If we define the world by its dominant groups, the world is white. If we define a country by its dominant groups, the United States is white. Notice that in the case of the world, whiteness is not a matter of numerical majority. What has been called the ‘browning of America,’ through white-nonwhite intermarriage and the increase in nonwhite populations due to recent Hispanic and Asian immigration, symbolizes both the numerical decrease of whites as a majority and progress toward equality among white and nonwhite groups.” (Pg. 58)
She states, “During the past two decades, Indian, Asian, Chicana, Latina, African-American and multi- and biracial women activists and scholars have constructed theories and descriptions of the lives of women of color in the United States. Some of their work has been developed as a criticism of earlier writing by white middle-class women in feminism and women’s studies. Other strains of nonwhite feminism and women’s studies have focused directly on goals and strategies for empowering American women of color.” (Pg. 81)
She points out, “A classless, egalitarian society has long been an American ideal, especially in the Western states. The ideal is that regardless of origins, everyone is equal in the eyes of the law; all have the same opportunities for material success and the same rights to respect and privacy from others. Throughout the 19th century it was popularly believed that privilege and snobbery were symptoms of European decadence and corruption. Americans were all equal as part of their constitutional rights as individuals, their spirit of independence, and their shared sense of being part of a young, dynamic civilization… A system of ‘social caste,’ with unchanging hereditary membership on each level of a hierarchy of social status and economic and political power, was deeply repugnant to the majority of Americans. This idealistic aversion to class and caste has been reinforced in practice by the continuously changing nature of American culture.” (Pg. 97)
She suggests in the final chapter, “A ‘cultural paradigm’ is a set of assumptions about an area of human life, or the world, that is shared by a sufficiently influential number of people so that the set of assumptions is part of common sense. The paradigm functions as a theory that explains past and present experiences, and it generates predictions and expectation about future experience… A new paradigm of race might begin with knowledge that there is no biological foundation for the different racial groups. As a result, what was previously thought of as race might now be thought of as ethnicity… Mixed-race realities support this reconfiguration of race as ethnicity, and so does consideration of the ways in which ideas of race have changed over time and across cultures… A new paradigm of race might have some detachment from race built into it that would allow for the possibility that racial categorization, identity, and struggle will pass out of history… race would be no more than an idea about human beings that was useful for organizing society in the past, but is increasingly without use or benefit as time goes on.” (Pg. 108)
This book will interest those are studying such issues of culture, ethnicity, etc.
Naomi Zack (b. 1944) is professor of Philosophy at Lehman College (CUNY); she formerly taught at the University of Albany, and the University or Oregon.
She wrote in the Preface to this 1998 book, “This book is meant to be a toolbox for thinking rationally and reasonably about race… I hope it will be useful for … anyone who wants to calmly reflect, talk, and write about the topics and problems concerning race that confront us at the close of the 20th century in the United States.” (Pg. x)
She continues, “My students and my sons are part of the generation that will have well-formed memories of the 20th century as they reach full adulthood in the 21st. W.E.B. Du Bois’s prediction that the main social problem in the 20th century would involve race has proved true. It may also hold for the 21st century. But it will not hold for the next millennium. This generation of my sons and students is destined to span two millennia. They have the right stuff to do that: speed, strength, talent, ambition, and desire for all of the good things this earth still has to offer. The complaint of some members of my generation that they are not humanitarians and scholars obscures the ease with which these young adults learn what they need to know. As they come into their full powers, their compassion will flower. Some of them will love truth or beauty for its own sake. They will honor us.” (Pg. xii)
She explains, “The notion of human races as distinct biological breeds has no basis in physical science. In contemporary society, especially in educated or ‘enlightened’ subcultures, there is broad agreement that the findings of the physical sciences are the most reliable source of information about physical reality. To say that race in the physical sense had no foundation in science it to say that race in the physical sense is not real. Since by race, most Americans mean something physical, the lack of a foundation in science means that race is not real. Period.” (Pg. 10)
She asserts, “If people who think they are monoracial have a right to racial identities, then so ought people who are BIRACIAL or MULTIRACIAL have that right. To deny mixed-race adults or children identities as mixed is to discriminate against them on racial grounds. Such discrimination is morally wrong, and on that basis, it should be illegal. However, so long as the existence of mixed race is not recognized by law, legally speaking, there is no discrimination.” (Pg. 22) [By the way, Zack’s mother was Jewish, and her father Black and Native American.]
She notes, “Ethnicity is a characteristic of distinct groups that may or may not be geographically united and that can be identified both across and within nations. For example, Jews, as an ethnic group, have always been dispersed among different nations throughout their history, constituting a ‘diaspora.’ … At this time in human history, there are very few ethic groups that have no members who have left their ancestral homelands.” (Pg. 29)
She states, “The meaning or concept of racism for the majority of white Americans refers to hatred, hostility, contempt and harmful intentions in individuals’ hearts and minds. According to this definition, a racist is someone who has ill will toward other races and expresses that ill-will in speech and action, through racial slurs, insults based on race, unfair behavior based on race and unprovoked violent behavior based on the race of the victims. Racists in this classic sense would include Ku Klux Klan members, Nazis and neo-Nazis, and anyone else who … advocates harming people of other races. Classic racism is conscious and deliberate.” (Pg. 40-41)
She points out, “According to the taxonomy of race, over three-quarters of the world’s population is nonwhite: Asian, Indian, black and mixed. Even if one begins by viewing races as no more than biological types, it immediately becomes clear, on a global socioeconomic basis, that racial difference is not mere biological variety. Racial differences are accompanied by significant differences in wealth, military power, comfort in lifestyle, access to the most up-to-date consumer products, and technological expertise. While the racial taxonomy is superficial and even false in biological terms, it is a remarkably accurate device for picking out the socioeconomic differences. That this should be so is the result of historical events: the descendants of the groups of people whose members invented the racial taxonomy according to which they were white, are now the people who have the most wealth, power, possessions, and technology. If we define the world by its dominant groups, the world is white. If we define a country by its dominant groups, the United States is white. Notice that in the case of the world, whiteness is not a matter of numerical majority. What has been called the ‘browning of America,’ through white-nonwhite intermarriage and the increase in nonwhite populations due to recent Hispanic and Asian immigration, symbolizes both the numerical decrease of whites as a majority and progress toward equality among white and nonwhite groups.” (Pg. 58)
She states, “During the past two decades, Indian, Asian, Chicana, Latina, African-American and multi- and biracial women activists and scholars have constructed theories and descriptions of the lives of women of color in the United States. Some of their work has been developed as a criticism of earlier writing by white middle-class women in feminism and women’s studies. Other strains of nonwhite feminism and women’s studies have focused directly on goals and strategies for empowering American women of color.” (Pg. 81)
She points out, “A classless, egalitarian society has long been an American ideal, especially in the Western states. The ideal is that regardless of origins, everyone is equal in the eyes of the law; all have the same opportunities for material success and the same rights to respect and privacy from others. Throughout the 19th century it was popularly believed that privilege and snobbery were symptoms of European decadence and corruption. Americans were all equal as part of their constitutional rights as individuals, their spirit of independence, and their shared sense of being part of a young, dynamic civilization… A system of ‘social caste,’ with unchanging hereditary membership on each level of a hierarchy of social status and economic and political power, was deeply repugnant to the majority of Americans. This idealistic aversion to class and caste has been reinforced in practice by the continuously changing nature of American culture.” (Pg. 97)
She suggests in the final chapter, “A ‘cultural paradigm’ is a set of assumptions about an area of human life, or the world, that is shared by a sufficiently influential number of people so that the set of assumptions is part of common sense. The paradigm functions as a theory that explains past and present experiences, and it generates predictions and expectation about future experience… A new paradigm of race might begin with knowledge that there is no biological foundation for the different racial groups. As a result, what was previously thought of as race might now be thought of as ethnicity… Mixed-race realities support this reconfiguration of race as ethnicity, and so does consideration of the ways in which ideas of race have changed over time and across cultures… A new paradigm of race might have some detachment from race built into it that would allow for the possibility that racial categorization, identity, and struggle will pass out of history… race would be no more than an idea about human beings that was useful for organizing society in the past, but is increasingly without use or benefit as time goes on.” (Pg. 108)
This book will interest those are studying such issues of culture, ethnicity, etc.
January 12, 2019
A good overview of the different aspects of race, ethnicity, gender, and finances that I hadn't thought about before. This was an educational read so don't expect this to be a quick non-fiction book you can knock out in a couple of days.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews