Racism

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Discrimination & Race Relations
Cover of the book Racism by Albert Memmi, University of Minnesota Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Albert Memmi ISBN: 9781452943602
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press Publication: February 15, 2014
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press Language: English
Author: Albert Memmi
ISBN: 9781452943602
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publication: February 15, 2014
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press
Language: English
An eminent social analyst examines the way racism works-and how it can be overcome.

Racism: It is social, not “natural”; it is general, not “personal”; and it is tragically effective. In a remarkable meditation on a subject at the troubled center of American life, Albert Memmi investigates racism as social pathology-a cultural disease that prevails because it allows one segment of society to empower itself at the expense of another. By turns historical, sociological, and autobiographical, Racism moves beyond individual prejudice and taste to engage the broader questions of collective behavior and social responsibility.

The book comprises three sections-“Description,” “Definition,” and “Treatment”-in which Memmi delineates racism’s causes and hidden workings, examines its close affinity to colonialism, and considers its everyday manifestations over a period of centuries throughout the West.

For Memmi, the structure of racism has four “moments”: the insistence on difference; the negative valuation imposed on those who differ; the generalizing of this negative valuation to an entire group; and the use of generalization to legitimize hostility. Memmi shows how it is not racism’s content-which can change at will-but its form that gives it such power and tenacity.

Born in a poor section of Tunis, Tunisia, a Jew among Muslims, an Arab among Europeans, Memmi brings his own experience of the complex contours of prejudice to his analysis of a problem that divides societies the world over. Writing in the tradition of Frantz Fanon, Memmi redirects debates about racism-and offers a rare chance for progress against social prejudice.
An eminent social analyst examines the way racism works-and how it can be overcome.

Racism: It is social, not “natural”; it is general, not “personal”; and it is tragically effective. In a remarkable meditation on a subject at the troubled center of American life, Albert Memmi investigates racism as social pathology-a cultural disease that prevails because it allows one segment of society to empower itself at the expense of another. By turns historical, sociological, and autobiographical, Racism moves beyond individual prejudice and taste to engage the broader questions of collective behavior and social responsibility.

The book comprises three sections-“Description,” “Definition,” and “Treatment”-in which Memmi delineates racism’s causes and hidden workings, examines its close affinity to colonialism, and considers its everyday manifestations over a period of centuries throughout the West.

For Memmi, the structure of racism has four “moments”: the insistence on difference; the negative valuation imposed on those who differ; the generalizing of this negative valuation to an entire group; and the use of generalization to legitimize hostility. Memmi shows how it is not racism’s content-which can change at will-but its form that gives it such power and tenacity.

Born in a poor section of Tunis, Tunisia, a Jew among Muslims, an Arab among Europeans, Memmi brings his own experience of the complex contours of prejudice to his analysis of a problem that divides societies the world over. Writing in the tradition of Frantz Fanon, Memmi redirects debates about racism-and offers a rare chance for progress against social prejudice.

More books from University of Minnesota Press

Cover of the book After Extinction by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book Trilogy of Resistance by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book Model Immigrants and Undesirable Aliens by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book Digital Stockholm Syndrome in the Post-Ontological Age by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book There But for Fortune by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book Architecture's Historical Turn by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book Photo-Fiction, a Non-Standard Aesthetics by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book The Anime Ecology by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book Dead Matter by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book For All Waters by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book Those Who Work, Those Who Don't by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book Eugenic Feminism by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book Traumatic Realism by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders by Albert Memmi
Cover of the book Producers, Parasites, Patriots by Albert Memmi
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy