Racecraft cover art

Racecraft

The Soul of Inequality in American Life

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Racecraft

By: Karen E. Fields, Barbara J. Fields
Narrated by: Karen Chilton
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £22.99

Buy Now for £22.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Tackling the myth of a post-racial society

Most people assume that racism grows from a perception of human difference: the fact of race gives rise to the practice of racism. Sociologist Karen E. Fields and historian Barbara J. Fields argue otherwise: the practice of racism produces the illusion of race, through what they call “racecraft.” And this phenomenon is intimately entwined with other forms of inequality in American life. So pervasive are the devices of racecraft in American history, economic doctrine, politics, and everyday thinking that the presence of racecraft itself goes unnoticed.

That the promised post-racial age has not dawned, the authors argue, reflects the failure of Americans to develop a legitimate language for thinking about and discussing inequality. That failure should worry everyone who cares about democratic institutions.

©2012, 2014 Barbara J. Fields and Karen E. Fields. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Black & African American Politics & Government Racism & Discrimination United States
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Postcapitalist Desire cover art
The Death of the Left cover art
The Singularity of Being cover art
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism cover art
Against Decolonization cover art
Born in Blackness cover art
A Book Forged in Hell cover art
The Humanity Archive cover art
A Companion to Marx's Grundrisse cover art
Racism cover art
The Enigma of Clarence Thomas cover art
An African American and Latinx History of the United States cover art
1620 cover art
All About Love cover art
The Plot to Change America cover art
The Mushroom at the End of the World cover art

Critic reviews

“It’s not just a challenge to racists, it’s a challenge to people like me, it’s a challenge to African-Americans who have accepted the fact of race and define themselves by the concept of race.”
--Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Fundamentally challenged some of my oldest and laziest ideas about race.”
--Zadie Smith

“Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields have undertaken a great untangling of how the chimerical concepts of race are pervasively and continuously reinvented and reemployed in this country.”
--Maria Bustillos, Los Angeles Review of Books

What listeners say about Racecraft

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Needs major editing

Not so much a book, more a collection of loosely related essays with wholesale repetition across them, this work nevertheless articulates a valuable and mainly well-argued central thesis: the fiction of race realism is perpetuated with the effect of maintaining inequality.

Other reviewers do a great job, so all I will add is that if the history of IQ testing bothers you, but you use the term BIPOC with your head held high, you should probably read this book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Extremely illuminating

Very enjoyable and eye opening, will need another read to understand more fully, slightly tricky

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!