by Juliet Hooker
Princeton University Press, 2023
[Publication date: October 3, 2023]
How race shapes expectations about whose losses matter
In
democracies, citizens must accept loss; we can’t always be on the
winning side. But in the United States, the fundamental civic capacity
of being able to lose is not distributed equally. Propped up by white
supremacy, whites (as a group) are accustomed to winning; they have
generally been able to exercise political rule without having to accept
sharing it. Black citizens, on the other hand, are expected to be
political heroes whose civic suffering enables progress toward racial
justice. In this book, Juliet Hooker, a leading thinker on democracy and
race, argues that the two most important forces driving racial politics
in the United States today are Black grief and white grievance. Black
grief is exemplified by current protests against police violence―the
latest in a tradition of violent death and subsequent public mourning
spurring Black political mobilization. The potent politics of white
grievance, meanwhile, which is also not new, imagines the United States
as a white country under siege.
Drawing on African American
political thought, Hooker examines key moments in US racial politics
that illuminate the problem of loss in democracy. She connects today’s
Black Lives Matter protests to the use of lynching photographs to arouse
public outrage over post–Reconstruction era racial terror, and she
discusses Emmett Till’s funeral as a catalyst for the civil rights
struggles of the 1950s and 1960s. She also traces the political
weaponization of white victimhood during the Obama and Trump
presidencies. Calling for an expansion of Black and white political
imaginations, Hooker argues that both must learn to sit with loss, for
different reasons and to different ends.
An intriguing, academic analysis of the link between U.S. racial politics and democracy."---Rebekah Kati, Library Journal
"This
fascinating and critical research sheds light on the personal and
political ramifications of loss and the racial inequities they continue
to perpetuate."---Karla Strand, Ms. Magazine
REVIEWS:
“This fascinating book provides a rich and timely dialogical space that goes beyond our polarized politics. Juliet Hooker’s subtle analysis gets inside the complex dynamics of the Black and White worlds in order to deepen our commitment to democratic possibilities.”―Cornel West, Union Theological Seminary
“Juliet Hooker has penned an intervention that is important, necessary, and long overdue. The significance of loss and its unequal distribution has gone without saying in political theory for far too long. This omission has prevented us from attempting to grapple honestly with the fact that some of what has been lost is impossible to recover or repair, and from understanding what costs are embedded in actually existing democratic life and who has been made to bear those costs. Hooker's contribution in this work is surgical and incisive, with large implications for the field.”―Deva Woodly, author of Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movement
“This book is an extraordinary work of critical race studies and democratic theory. Alert to the inchoate affective dimensions of loss, Hooker brilliantly reveals a deeply racialized economy of suffering that demands the interminable spectacle of Black death and public performance of Black loss. Resisting the democratic politics of repair, she discovers new forms of Black worldmaking that inspire transformative action in the present.”―Linda M. G. Zerilli, University of Chicago
“In this soberly eloquent book, Juliet Hooker shows that our common humanity requires all Americans to accept that losses of unjust privileges are not valid grounds for grievance, and that the burdens of unjust losses must not include duties to heroically overcome them. By refusing these wrongful conceptions of loss, we may find more gainful paths for ourselves and others.”―Rogers M. Smith, University of Pennsylvania
“With Black Grief/White Grievance, Juliet Hooker examines the two terms of her book’s title in all their profound contradictions. Drawing on W.E.B. Du Bois, Claudia Rankine, and many others, she provides the outlines of a racial system built in part on affectual politics, but without ignoring structural racism. By contrasting Black grief and white grievance so coherently and emotionally, by looking at the political weight of racist affect, of white shame and rage, of continuous Black mourning and attempts to transcend it, Hooker makes a serious contribution to the theory of racism. This startling and promising book is not to be missed!”―Howard Winant, University of California, Santa Barbara
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought
by Melvin L. Rogers
Princeton University Press, 2023
“Rarely does a book fundamentally alter our understanding of a subject. Melvin Rogers’s The Darkened Light of Faith is one such book. Grand and profound, it not only provides insights about the people and ideas it examines, but also offers wisdom about how we ought to live together. The care and brilliance with which Rogers treats African American political thought is breathtaking and inspiring. This will be a foundational book for as long as the world turns.”―Nicholas Buccola, author of The Fire Is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America
“At a moment when the value of democracy has been challenged by a resurgent authoritarian right and, in entirely different ways and to different ends, by antiracist thinkers on the left, Rogers advances a brilliant defense of democratic ideals. The Darkened Light of Faith makes its case through innovative readings of African American political thinkers who insist that U.S. democracy can and must be reconstructed.”―Lawrie Balfour, author of Toni Morrison: Imagining Freedom
“With The Darkened Light of Faith, Rogers solidifies his place among the most sophisticated and insightful interpreters of the African American political tradition. After his learned, probing, and elegant treatment, it’s impossible to read these familiar texts and debates in the usual ways. The political wisdom and ethical truths that Rogers extracts from such thinkers as Walker, Wells, Cooper, and Du Bois will be absolutely vital if we are ever to transform the United States into a racially just society.”―Tommie Shelby, author of We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity
“What a triumph! With Copernican gusto, Melvin Rogers shatters the genealogy of republicanism, showing how nineteenth- and twentieth-century Black political thinkers and activists offered alternatives to white supremacy and reimagined freedom beyond domination. It is not too early to place Rogers’s landmark book alongside David Walker’s Appeal, Anna Julia Cooper’s A Voice from the South, W.E.B. Du Bois’s Darkwater, and Angela Davis’s Lectures on Liberation.”―Neil Roberts, editor of A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass
“Melvin Rogers has written a brilliant book. Aiming to wrest democracy from the grip of white supremacy, he presents incisive readings of key figures in the African American intellectual and artistic traditions, from David Walker and W.E.B. Du Bois to Billie Holiday and James Baldwin, and develops a powerful and attractive political vision inspired by their insights. Philosophically rich, imaginative, erudite, and beautifully written, The Darkened Light of Faith is a major contribution to political theory and intellectual history.”―Duncan Bell, author of Dreamworlds of Race: Empire and the Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Punished For Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Healby Bettina L. Love
St. Martin's Press, 2023
[Publication date: September 12, 2023]
NOW A NEW YORK TIMES AND A USA TODAY BESTSELLER
“I
am an eighties baby who grew to hate school. I never fully understood
why. Until now. Until Bettina Love unapologetically and painstakingly
chronicled the last forty years of education ‘reform’ in this landmark
book. I hated school because it warred on me. I hated school because I
loved to dream.”
―Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times bestselling author of How to be an Antiracist
In
the tradition of Michelle Alexander, an unflinching reckoning with the
impact of 40 years of racist public school policy on generations of
Black lives
In Punished for Dreaming
Dr. Bettina Love argues forcefully that Reagan’s presidency ushered in a
War on Black Children, pathologizing and penalizing them in concert
with the War on Drugs. New policies punished schools with policing,
closure, and loss of funding in the name of reform, as white savior,
egalitarian efforts increasingly allowed private interests to infiltrate
the system. These changes implicated children of color, and Black
children in particular, as low performing, making it all too easy to
turn a blind eye to their disproportionate conviction and incarceration.
Today, there is little national conversation about a structural
overhaul of American schools; cosmetic changes, rooted in
anti-Blackness, are now passed off as justice.
It is time to put a price tag on the miseducation of Black children. In this prequel to The New Jim Crow, Dr. Love serves up a blistering account of four decades of educational reform through the lens of the people who lived it. Punished for Dreaming lays
bare the devastating effect on 25 Black Americans caught in the
intersection of economic gain and racist ideology. Then, with input from
leading U.S. economists, Dr. Love offers a road map for repair, arguing for reparations with transformation for all children at its core.
REVIEWS:
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“Detailed and persuasive, this is a must-read for educators.”
―Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Lays out the racial injustices rampant in the public education system, from the era of school segregation to the massive resistance to Brown v. Board to the current era of so-called school choice. … an important―though enraging and heartbreaking―read.”
―Booklist
"A stark critique of 40 years of education policies that were deliberately crafted ‘to punish Black people for believing in and fighting for their right to quality public education.’ … An impassioned plea for educational justice.”
―Kirkus Reviews
“A landmark book.”
―Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to be an Antiracist
“Brilliant."
―Carol Anderson, bestselling author of White Rage
"Love is one of our fiercest advocates."
―Michael Eric Dyson, bestselling author
"An urgent call to action."
―Salamishah Tillet, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
"Blends brilliance, warmth, and a deep commitment to the pursuit of justice for all our nation’s children."
―Brittney Cooper, bestselling author of Eloquent Rage
"Accessible and deeply personal...Love's interviews with Black folks... add a tenderness and intimacy."
―Eve L. Ewing, author of Ghosts in the Schoolyard
"Love brilliantly exposes how the promise of education as a means to lift all boats and right historical wrongs is coopted by politics, strategies, euphemisms, and implicit biases that surveil and control children of color under the guise of teaching them. This is an urgent, often surprising, ultimately must-read book for anyone concerned with the pedagogy in and of our nation."
―Jonathan Metzl, author of Dying of Whiteness
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
