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A review by tonstantweader
We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson, Nic Stone, Tonya Bolden
4.0
We Are Not Yet Equal is a condensed history of the post-Civil War struggles to combat racism and protect the civil rights of African Americans and the resistance to that struggle by white supremacists of all kinds, from those in sheets to those in business suits to those in the White House. As soon as the War was over, racists in the North and the South and in both parties set to work to get things back to their normal, the white supremacist normal, with Black Codes and new laws that effectively reestablished slavery, this time through forced labor for debt and petty offenses like vagrancy.
Many sought relief by moving north, though the South’s demand for cheap labor led to laws and strategies designed to keep Black families from leaving. Seriously, they went so far as to kidnap trains and hold them, refusing to let them leave if they carried Black people north despite the fact we were in the middle of World War I.
The Massive Resistance to Brown vs. Bd. of Education is somewhat familiar to Americans. We’ve seen the Norman Rockwell painting, after all. However, it lasted far longer and was far more extreme and costly than is usually recognized. Some places simply shut down education completely for years. It’s not only they would rather be poor than equal, they also would rather be uneducated than integrated. If we are honest, the Massive Resistance to integrated education continues to the day with charter schools and the ongoing attacks on public education.
Anderson and Bolden also cover mass incarceration, the war on drugs, including the Reagan era policy of promoting crack cocaine to fund the Contras. It’s depressing, particularly how effectively the gains of the Civil Rights Movement have been undercut by the Supreme Court who is now working hard to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act.
We Are Not Yet Equal is an excellent primer on systemic racism. The people who wrote this know it really doesn’t matter whether there is a tape of Trump saying a racist fighting word because, through policy, Trump’s Administration has undone progress on criminal justice reform, okayed segregated housing and schools, and attacked voting rights. They are not wasting their time on personal racism because it is the laws, policies, and structures that enforce racism that have the greatest impact and, frankly, perpetuated personal racism.
This is a short book that is clear and easy to understand that sometimes vibrates with outrage and a passion for justice. This is less about the search for equality and more about white resistance to equality and the extreme ends to which white people will go to enforce white supremacy and how that is achieved through courts and legislation, not so much through protest and unrest–because if you’re in power, you can use the tools of power.
This would be a great book for people to read in high school or junior high. It would be fabulous if everyone was exposed to this history because as a country, we need it.
We Are Not Yet Equal will be published on September 11th. I received an ARC from the publisher through Shelf Awareness.
We Are Not Yet Equal at Bloomsbury
Carol Anderson faculty site
Tonya Bolden author site
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/9781547600762/
Many sought relief by moving north, though the South’s demand for cheap labor led to laws and strategies designed to keep Black families from leaving. Seriously, they went so far as to kidnap trains and hold them, refusing to let them leave if they carried Black people north despite the fact we were in the middle of World War I.
The Massive Resistance to Brown vs. Bd. of Education is somewhat familiar to Americans. We’ve seen the Norman Rockwell painting, after all. However, it lasted far longer and was far more extreme and costly than is usually recognized. Some places simply shut down education completely for years. It’s not only they would rather be poor than equal, they also would rather be uneducated than integrated. If we are honest, the Massive Resistance to integrated education continues to the day with charter schools and the ongoing attacks on public education.
Anderson and Bolden also cover mass incarceration, the war on drugs, including the Reagan era policy of promoting crack cocaine to fund the Contras. It’s depressing, particularly how effectively the gains of the Civil Rights Movement have been undercut by the Supreme Court who is now working hard to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act.
We Are Not Yet Equal is an excellent primer on systemic racism. The people who wrote this know it really doesn’t matter whether there is a tape of Trump saying a racist fighting word because, through policy, Trump’s Administration has undone progress on criminal justice reform, okayed segregated housing and schools, and attacked voting rights. They are not wasting their time on personal racism because it is the laws, policies, and structures that enforce racism that have the greatest impact and, frankly, perpetuated personal racism.
This is a short book that is clear and easy to understand that sometimes vibrates with outrage and a passion for justice. This is less about the search for equality and more about white resistance to equality and the extreme ends to which white people will go to enforce white supremacy and how that is achieved through courts and legislation, not so much through protest and unrest–because if you’re in power, you can use the tools of power.
This would be a great book for people to read in high school or junior high. It would be fabulous if everyone was exposed to this history because as a country, we need it.
We Are Not Yet Equal will be published on September 11th. I received an ARC from the publisher through Shelf Awareness.
We Are Not Yet Equal at Bloomsbury
Carol Anderson faculty site
Tonya Bolden author site
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/9781547600762/