Racism Matters

William D. Wright

• Publisher: Praeger
• Year: 1998
• Print ISBN: 9780275961978
• eBook ISBN: 9781567509779
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

This work offers a new discussion of racism in America that focuses on how White people have been affected by their own racism and how it impacts upon relations between Blacks and Whites. This study draws attention to how racism is distinctly different from race, and it shows how, since the late 17th century, most Whites have been afflicted by their own racism, as evidenced by considerable delusional thinking, dehumanization, alienation from America, and psychological and social pathology. White people have created and maintained a White racist America, which is the antithesis of liberty, equality, justice, and freedom; Black people continue to be the primary victims of this culture. Although racism in America has changed since the 1950s and 1960s from a blatant and violent White racist America to a less violent and more subtle White racist America, racism still severely hampers the ability of most Blacks to develop and be free. The continuing racist context in which Blacks live requires that they organize and use effective group power, or Black Power, to help themselves. One obstacle to Black achievement is the use of intelligence tests, which are wholly unscientific and represent a manifestation of subtle White racism. A challenge to the writing on race in this country, this work focuses on the victims and not the perpetrators.

Table of contents

• Preface
• 1. History: What It Is, What It Tells Us
• 2. Racism Matters
• 3. White and Black Alienation in America
• 4. The Experiment That Never Was, 1783–1883
• 5. The Origins and Legitimacy of Black Power
• 6. Yet to Learn about Freedom
• 7. Subtle White Racism
• 8. Racism and the Question of Intelligence I
• 9. Racism and the Question of Intelligence II
• 10. Cognitive Elites and American Division
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index