Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness across the Disciplines

by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (Editor)

Every academic discipline has an origin story complicit with white supremacy. Racial hierarchy and colonialism structured the very foundations of most disciplines' research and teaching paradigms. In the early twentieth century, the academy faced rising opposition and correction, evident in the intervention of scholars including W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Carter G. Woodson, and others. By the mid-twentieth century, education itself became a center in the struggle for social justice. Scholars mounted insurgent efforts to discredit some of the most odious intellectual defenses of white supremacy in academia, but the disciplines and their keepers remained unwilling to interrogate many of the racist foundations of their fields, instead embracing a framework of racial colorblindness as their default position.

This book challenges scholars and students to see race again. Examining the racial histories and colorblindness in fields as diverse as social psychology, the law, musicology, literary studies, sociology, and gender studies, Seeing Race Again documents the profoundly contradictory role of the academy in constructing, naturalizing, and reproducing racial hierarchy. It shows how colorblindness compromises the capacity of disciplines to effectively respond to the wide set of contemporary political, economic, and social crises marking public life today.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Race, Anti Racist, Sociology, Social Justice, Feminism

432 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 5, 2019

Reviews

[Jeremy Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. There were certain things that I disagreed with, but I actually found the overall message to be quite compelling: That colorblindness does not eliminate racism. Point well taken. Even so, I can't completely get on board with the authors' alternative solutions, since some of them appear to me to introduce more problems than they solve.

[Milton Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important text for anyone seeking to transcend the limitations of colorblind cognitive constructions. At a time when most folks seem utterly confused about race, this text offers some important pathways to understanding. This is a timely book, one that promises to remain relevant for some time to come.

[Fifi]

'The task of countering colorblindness is thus not merely to see race again, but to reenvision how disciplinary tools, convention and knowledge-producing practices that erase the social dynamics that produce race can be critically engaged and selectively repurposed toward emancipatory ends.'
#DeZinVanHetBoek #TheEssenceOfTheBook

Super important topic and interesting read, but I'm putting this book down for now. I had hoped it would discuss how to see race again in various realms of society. However, the authors focus specifically on academic disciplines and they do so in highly academic prose.
After having read the first few chapters it seems safe to say the authors' overarching message certainly applies in other fields of work (such as education). But the analysis and suggestions in the following contributions are aimed at universities and scholars in particular.

I can certainly appreciate scholarly treatises from time to time, and especially value carefully wrought phrasing. But right now I am struggling to get through these dense texts as current personal circumstances lead my mind astray.
The book deserves a concentrated read, and I am more than willing to put in the effort another time, but for now I will read a novel by James Baldwin instead.

Hopefully, people working in academia will read this book and take the authors' plea to counter colorblindness to heart.

No rating since this is a volume with contributions by many authors and I've read only a few chapters.