CRITICAL RACE AND ETHNIC STUDY

The Critical Race and Ethnic Study Division of SSSP is a collective of scholars, activists, and concerned individuals who recognize that we continue to live in a society in which racial inequality, segregation, discrimination, and systematic racism function both tacitly and overtly. In our current political climate, we are witnessing an increase in hate groups and violence against people of color. We are also seeing the rise of anti-racist and anti-xenophobic social movements at the local, national and international level. Therefore, we need to work to dismantle the structures that uphold white supremacy in the United States and support the political actors and organizations invested in creating equitable racial futures. Our Division’s vision of our future society is one in which racial and ethnic (and all other types of) oppression and discrimination no longer exist. Accordingly, in a world in which the multifarious manifestations of racism are often minimized or ignored, we believe it is a moral and scholarly responsibility to remain vigilant in our quest to study, understand, and make visible the latent and hidden operations, mechanisms, and effects of racism and to speak out against it.

Our collective goals revolve around gaining higher levels of inter- and intra-racial understanding, substantive cooperation, and intimate camaraderie toward dismantling racial inequality and injustice. We utilize various sociological models to address racial and ethnic inequality and injustice at all levels, investigating governmental policies, practices of social institutions, representations through media and culture, and individual and group interactions. Our vision for the future is of a just society, in which racial and ethnic histories and cultures are not subjugated, but acknowledged and understood. Furthermore, we implore all members of this section to understand the struggle that people of color often endure, and to join in the fight for alleviating the causes of human suffering and through our scholarship, our teaching, and our service to the community and beyond.

We encourage members and allies to engage with books from the suggested (but by no means exhaustive) list of readings below as well as activists on the ground. Division members are also encouraged to join our Facebook community (https://www.facebook.com/groups/sssp.drem/). There, we share information related to our larger interests and investment in the alleviation of racial and ethnic social problems.  

Division mission statement reviewed in November 2023 by Watoii Rabii, Oakland University, Racial and Ethnic Minorities Division Co-Chair, 2022-2024 and Amani M. Awwad, SUNY Canton, Racial and Ethnic Minorities Division Co-Chair, 2023-2025. No edits were made. Division mission statement edited in November 2022 by Rahsaan H. Mahadeo, Appalachian State University, Racial and Ethnic Minorities Division Co-Chair, 2021-2023 and Watoii Rabii, Oakland University, Racial and Ethnic Minorities Division Co-Chair, 2022-2024.

Some Readings:

Alba, Richard and Victor Nee. 2003. Remaking the American Mainstream. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York, NY: The New Press.

Allport, Gordon. [1988] 1954. The Nature of Prejudice. Reprinted, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Bell, Derrick. 1992. Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. New York: Basic Books.

Blauner, Robert. 1972. Racial Oppression in America. New York: Harper and Row.

Bonacich, Edna. 1972. “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market.” American Sociological Review 37:547-59.

Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 1997. “Rethinking Racism: Toward a Structural Interpretation.” American Sociological Review. 62(3): 465-80.

Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2004. “From Bi-Racial to Tri-Racial: Towards a New System of Racial Stratification in the USA.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 27(6): 931-50.

Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2013. Racism without Racists: Color Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. 4^th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 2008. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.

Cox, Oliver Cromwell. 1970. Caste, Class or Race. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Du Bois, W.E.B. 1903 [2006]. The Souls of Black Folk. West Valley City, UT: Waking Lion Press.

Feagin, Joe. 2000. Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparation. New York: Routledge.

Gans, Herbert. 1979. “Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and Cultures in America.” Ethnic and Racial Studies. 2:1-20.

Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. 2004. Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Gordon, Milton. 1964. Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion and National Origin. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hall, Ronald. 1995. “The Bleaching Syndrome: African Americans´ Response to Cultural Domination Vis-a-Vis Skincolor.” Journal of Black Studies, 26: 172-183.

Jordan, Winthrop. 1974. The White Man’s Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.

Kim, Claire Jean. 1999. “The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans.” Politics and Society, 27(1): 105-138.

Lee, Jennifer and Frank Bean. 2004. “America’s Changing Color Line: Immigration, Race/Ethnicity and Multiracial Identification.” Annual Review of Sociology. 30:221-42.

Lewis, Amanda E. 2003. Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the Color Line in Classrooms and Communities. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Murguia, Edward and Rogelio Saenz. 2002. “An Analysis of the Latin Americanization of Race in the United States: A Reconnaissance of Color Stratification among Mexicans.” Race & Society, 5:85-101.

Myrdal, Gunner. 1944. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers

Nelson, Alondra. 2011. Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 2014. Racial formation in the United States. New York: Routledge.

Park, Robert Ezra. 1950. Race and Culture. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.

Portes, Alejandro and Ruben Rumbaut. 2006. Immigrant America: A Portrait, 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Treitler, Vilna Bashi. 2013. The Ethnic Project: Transforming Racial Fiction into Ethnic Factions. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

Waters, Mary. 1990. Ethnic Identities: Choosing Identities in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Waters, Mary and Tomas Jimenez. 2005. “Assessing Immigrant Assimilation: New Empirical and Theoretical Challenges.” Annual Review of Sociology, 31:105-25.