Face to Face: The Changing State of Racism Across America

Waller, James

ISBN 10: 0306458659 / ISBN 13: 9780306458651

Published by Plenum Press Insight Books, New York, 1998

About this Item

New York: Plenum, 1998. First edition and first printing. 8vo. Hard cover. 272 pp. Includes a Bibliography and Index. The author challenges the myth that racism is in decline in the United States. Fine in fine dust jacket, protected in a mylar cover.

Seller Inventory # JLP-B3000-09

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Face to Face: The Changing State of Racism Across America
• Publisher: Plenum Press Insight Books, New York
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0306458659
• ISBN 13: 9780306458651
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Social Justice

About this title

Synopsis

The author presents extensive survey and demographic data to challenge the myth that life is good for racial minorities and that racism is in decline. He argues that prejudice is inherent in the traps of automatic cognitive processing, i.e. the ways our minds work and the ways in which we respond to each other. He concludes with seven principles for racial reconciliation that, despite our limitations, offer hope for encouraging racial diversity. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Reviews

Racial discrimination in the U.S. is still pervasive, if more covert and subtle, and it affects everything from criminal sentencing to obtaining a mortgage, contends Waller, who teaches psychology at Whitworth College in Washington state. His eloquent work, which, unfortunately, reads like a textbook, will serve nevertheless as a powerful tool for confronting racism and stereotyping. Although Waller focuses primarily on black-white interactions, he also includes the experience of Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans, as well as racial tensions between minority groups. Drawing on survey data, polls and other research (e.g., white males hold 95% of senior management positions), he compellingly argues that sharp racial inequalities still exist that affect minorities' educational opportunity, economic status and general quality of life. Waller also reports on the widely publicized cross-country study tours he conducted in 1996 and 1998, in which students immersed themselves in the daily lives of members of racial and ethnic minorities. Arguing pessimistically that the U.S. will never become a color-blind society because of the mind's habit of "social categorization" (separating us from them), Waller concludes by outlining seven steps to counteract prejudice, such as face-to-face interaction and teaching children antiracist attitudes.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.