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GHOSTS OF JIM CROW: ENDING RACISM IN POST-RACIAL AMERICA F. Michael Higginbotham Publisher: NewYork University Press: New York & London Year: 2013 ISBN: 978-0-8147-3747-7 (cl : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-8147-2446-0 (e-book) ISBN: 978-0-8147-6090-1 (e-book) Pagination: pp.315 Price: £30.00
Inspired by the 2009 inauguration of America's first Black president, Barack Obama, F. Michael Higginbotham unfolds the historic formation of the racial paradigm, which he reveals as comprising three elements: 'the misguided belief in both white superiority and black inferiority... the practice of separating blacks from the rest of the American community... and the continuing victimization of blacks, both by whites and by blacks themselves, through overt and covert practices including raceneutral lawsand policiesthat have a disproportionate negative impacton blacks' (p.28). Higginbotham then explores how persistent the racial paradigm is today before offering 'resolution to finally move America beyond race' (p.28).
The three components to the racial paradigm define the three chapters of Part I: Creating the Paradigm: Racial Hierarchy, which discusses the American nation's 'early efforts to legitimize the insidious notions of racial / hierarchy and separation' (pp.40/41). Racial categorization or classification is shown to have 'entrenched notions of white superiority and black inferiority', the latter defined...