Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness across the Disciplines

Every academic discipline has an origin story complicit with white supremacy. Racial hierarchy and colonialism structured the very foundations of most disciplines’ research and teaching paradigms. In the early twentieth century, the academy faced rising opposition and correction, evident in the intervention of scholars including W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Carter G. Woodson, and others. By the mid-twentieth century, education itself became a center in the struggle for social justice. Scholars mounted insurgent efforts to discredit some of the most odious intellectual defenses of white supremacy in academia, but the disciplines and their keepers remained unwilling to interrogate many of the racist foundations of their fields, instead embracing a framework of racial colorblindness as their default position. This book challenges scholars and students to see race again. Examining the racial histories and colorblindness in fields as diverse as social psychology, the law, musicology, literary studies, sociology, and gender studies, Seeing Race Again documents the profoundly contradictory role of the academy in constructing, naturalizing, and reproducing racial hierarchy. It shows how colorblindness compromises the capacity of disciplines to effectively respond to the wide set of contemporary political, economic, and social crises marking public life today.  

Table of Contents:
Preface and Acknowledgments: Praying to the Disciplinary Gods with One Eye Open Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Luke Charles Harris, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and George Lipsitz 1 • Introduction Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Luke Charles Harris, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and George Lipsitz PART ONE : MASKS 2 • The Sounds of Silence: How Race Neutrality Preserves White Supremacy George Lipsitz 3 • Unmasking Colorblindness in the Law: Lessons from the Formation of Critical Race Theory Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw 4 • Masking Legitimized Racism: Indigeneity, Colorblindness, and the Sociology of Race Dwanna L. McKay 5 • On the Transportability, Malleability, and Longevity of Colorblindness: Reproducing White Supremacy in Brazil and South Africa Marzia Milazzo 6 • How Colorblindness Flourished in the Age of Obama Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw PART TWO : MOVES 7 • The Possessive Investment in Classical Music: Confronting Legacies of White Supremacy in U.S. Schools and Departments of Music Loren Kajikawa 8 • Powerblind Intersectionality: Feminist Revanchism and Inclusion as a One-Way Street Barbara Tomlinson 9 • Colorblind Intersectionality Devon W. Carbado 10 • Causality, Context, and Colorblindness: Equal Educational Opportunity and the Politics of Racist Disavowal Leah N. Gordon 11 • Affirmative Action as Equalizing Opportunity: Challenging the Myth of “Preferential Treatment” Luke Charles Harris and Uma Narayan PART THREE : RESISTANCE AND TRANSFORMATION 12 • They (Color) Blinded Me with Science: Counteracting Coloniality of Knowledge in Hegemonic Psychology Glenn Adams and Phia S. Salter 13 • Toward a New Research Agenda? Foucault, Whiteness, and Indigenous Sovereignty Aileen Moreton-Robinson 14 • Why Black Lives Matter in the Humanities Felice Blake 15 • Negotiating Privileged Students’ Affective Resistances: Why a Pedagogy of Emotional Engagement Is Necessary Paula Ioanide 16 • Shifting Frames: Pedagogical Interventions in Colorblind Teaching Practice Milton Reynolds List of Contributors Index

About the Author :
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw is Professor of Law at University of California, Los Angeles, and Columbia University.   Luke Charles Harris is Associate Professor of Political Science at Vassar College.   Daniel Martinez HoSang is Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale University.   George Lipsitz is Professor of Sociology and Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  

Review :
"Edited by some of the leading race studies scholars—Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Luke Charles Harris, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and George Lipsitz—this collection of essays clearly outlines how the history of contemporary knowledge production and scholarship has a foundation in racially biased disciplinary frameworks, research methodologies, and pedagogical strategies. . . . these essays serve as a guide for all academics."