"Race Critical Theories: Text and Context" Review

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the essays "Defining Black Feminist Thought" by Patricia Hill Collins, "Everyday Racism: A New Approach to the Study of Racism" by Philomena Essed, and "The Nation Form: History and Ideology" by Etienne Ballibar, from the book "Race Critical Theories: Text and Context." The writer discusses how Collins tackles concepts of gender and shows the contribution that the diversity of black women voices has made to critical theory, and how racism for Essed is a powerful ideological social construct that affects how 'people' see the world, and also the mechanisms of the justice system. The writer also explains how Ballibar sheds light on the concept of race by discussing what makes a nation a community.

From the Paper:

""Everyday Racism: A New Approach to the Study of Racism" by Philomena Essed discusses the inherently contradictory notion of "individual racism." For Essed, racism is always an institutional issue. Power pertains to the ability of individual groups to act in consort. This is why African-American collective power is often so frightening and threatening to members of the white majority (182).Defining certain forms of racism as interpersonal and other forms as institutional is another example of the false nature of binary thinking about race in America, which Collins is also writing against in her essay about gender. Instead, Essed feels that while it is still problematic, the concept of systemic racism, or the day-to-day interaction of individuals and institutions is a more effective clarification of this term (179)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Race Critical Theories: Text and Context. Philomena Essed & David Theo Goldberg, Ed. Blackwell, 2002.

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