Racing for Innocence

Whiteness, Gender, and the Backlash Against Affirmative Action

Jennifer Pierce

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780804778794, 9780804778787
• eBook ISBN: 9780804783194
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

How is it that recipients of white privilege deny the role they play in reproducing racial inequality? Racing for Innocence addresses this question by examining the backlash against affirmative action in the late 1980s and early 1990s—just as courts, universities, and other institutions began to end affirmative action programs.

This book recounts the stories of elite legal professionals at a large corporation with a federally mandated affirmative action program, as well as the cultural narratives about race, gender, and power in the news media and Hollywood films. Though most white men denied accountability for any racism in the workplace, they recounted ways in which they resisted—whether wittingly or not— incorporating people of color or white women into their workplace lives. Drawing on three different approaches—ethnography, narrative analysis, and fiction—to conceptualize the complexities and ambiguities of race and gender in contemporary America, this book makes an innovative pedagogical tool.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Telling Stories About Race in an Era of Colorblindness
• 1. Innocence and Injury: The Politics of Cultural Memory in Print News Media
• 2. Filming Racial Progress: The Transformation of White Male Innocence
• 3. Racing for Innocence: Stories of Disavowal and Exclusion
• 4. Stand by Your Man: Women Lawyers and Affirmative Action
• 5. Small Talk: A Short Story
• Conclusion: Still Racing for Innocence
• Appendix A: Reflections on Methodology
• Appendix B: Hollywood Films
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index