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The color of politics : race and the mainsprings of American politics
A revealing look at the history of racism in the American working class.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: ""The interplay between class and race," Goldfield, a labor studies professor at Wayne State University, urges, is "the key to understanding the peculiarities of American politics and the political weakness of its working class." Goldfield examines critical points in U.S. history (colonial southern planters' choice of slavery over indentured labor; the Revolutionary War/Constitution era; the Civil War/Reconstruction period; the populist years and their "System of 1896"; and the Depression and New Deal), when powerful issues of governance and social relations (centrally including class and race) were raised, and their resolution "led to altered social and political relations in general, new arrangements of social control, and a reorganized system of racial domination and subordination." In addition to analyzing successes and failures of U.S. working-class movements in bridging racial divides by recognizing racial supremacy as an obstacle to all, Goldfield extends his study to include the civil rights movement and the past 30 years' "building of the white racist coalition," still scapegoating blacks to distract white workers from the true roots of their economic troubles. Timely and controversial. --Mary Carroll" From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission. Publisher's Weekly Review: "This thorough analysis of the role of race in American political life examines our failure to combat racism from colonial times to the present. Goldfield's (The Decline of Organized Labor) central argument is that at every turning point in U.S. history, race has played a critical role. Failure to deal with the problem, he notes, shows up primarily in the lack of policies to promote racial equality. The author concentrates his criticism on labor organizations, which, he argues, have missed too many opportunities to advance a radical, militant approach to the problems of the poor working classblack and white alike. The strength of his analysis is his meticulous examination of alternative theories before advancing his own. What might have been an academic exercise becomes an involving account of how a social system of racial subordination was perpetuated during eight watershed periods of our history. At present, the author contends, neither major political party is willing to tackle a situation in which politicians appeal to white voters by scapegoating minorities: "Thus, the present period is one of both instability and flux for the system of racial domination and race relations, with the looming possibility for increasing dominance of racial scapegoating." (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved" (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved