Powerfully synthesizing major currents in the field, this book addresses the issue of inequality across American politics and society, using race as a lens for the exploration of major themes in American history. It considers the concept of race as a social construction, against the background of the historical struggles for fairness
in a society based on the framework of democracy, whose principle is that majority's consent be necessary for the fulfillment of justice.
Foregrounding problems of race, capital, and political economy, it particularly examines the connections between race and class, the relationship of slavery and national politics, and the distinctive intellectual framework that Americans have developed to discuss race.
Offering a detailed account of civil rights legislation, an overview of immigration law and policy, and comprehensive overviews of debates about affirmative action, immigration, and the causes and solutions to racialized urban poverty, this book emphasizes what is distinctive about the United States and offers a unique comparative framework for thinking about America's racial past. It discusses American history from the early history of enslavement, nineteenth-century labor and politics to the modern debate about affirmative action and rights, combining secondary literature as well as original research. Based on one hundred interviews with (ex-)activists in the 1990s and the 2000s, it situates American understandings of race in both the history of science and in current scientific and social scientific research about race as a social construction.
The title introduces important dimensions of civil rights and black power history, with close attention to public policy.