SUNY series in African American Studies Series

John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, and the Politics of Ethnic Incorporation and Avoidance

Conservatism and Racism, and Why in America They Are the Same

Race is arguably the most profound and enduring cleavage in American society and politics. This book examines the sources and dynamics of the race cleavage in American society through a detailed analysis of intergroup and intragroup differences at the level of mass opinion. The ethclass theory, which examines the intersection of ethnicity and class, is used to analyze interracial differences in mass attitudes. This analysis yields three clusters of opinion that distinguish African Americans from whites — religiosity, interpersonal alienation, and political liberalism. The authors then examine the intragroup sources of these opinion differences among blacks in terms of class, gender, age, region, and religion. While the authors demonstrate an embryonic trend of more black middle class opinion agreement with whites, the book confirms the ethclass character of the black experience whereby race and race consciousness are still more significant than class in shaping black attitudes.

Given the growing class bifurcation in black America and the continuing debate about its significance in shaping black attitudes and behavior, this book offers a refreshing new analysis of the homogeneity as well as heterogeneity of black mass public opinion.

Ronald W. Walters and the Fight for Black Power, 1969-2010

by Robert C. Smith

Published 1 February 2018

Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era

by Robert C. Smith

Published 10 July 1995

This is the first book to assess in a systematic and theoretically informed way the course and status of racism in the post-civil rights era. It convincingly demonstrates that racism continues to exist in contemporary American society twenty-five years after the civil rights revolution. Smith clarifies the concept of racism through a historical analysis of the doctrine and practice of white supremacy. Then, drawing on a variety of data—surveys, court cases, the academic literature, government and privately collected statistical reports and studies, and personal experiences—Smith traces the present-day manifestations of racism ideologically, attitudinally, behaviorally, and institutionally. The final chapter presents a detailed critique of the literature on the black underclass and of William Julius Wilson's thesis on the declining significance of racism in explaining the underclass. In the process, it presents a persuasive argument that the persistence and growth of the underclass is itself major evidence of the prevalence of racism today.