PREORDERS TAKEN. RELEASE DATE: September 21, 2023
Description:
An exploration of how Asian Americans are uniquely positioned relative to whites and Black people in the U.S. racial order.
For scholarly and lay readers who are looking for a theoretically powerful, historically grounded, richly textured analysis of U.S. racial dynamics, with a special focus on how people of Asian descent have been positioned relative to whites and Black people for nearly two centuries.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Better Asians Than Blacks
Part I. Exclusion/Belonging
Part II. Ostracism/Initiation
Part III. Solidarity/Disavowal
Coda: Asian Americans and Anti-Blackness.
Review:
'Sure to elicit controversy and debate, Kim offers a stunning and provocative account of the racial positioning of Asian Americans in a pervasively anti-Black social order. In a work of enormous breadth, she challenges prevailing narratives and paradigms of Asian American history and politics by illustrating how Asian Americans have benefitted from anti-Blackness. Grasping the functionality of 'better than Black' for white supremacy becomes essential to imagining how anti-Asian racism might be framed and contested.' Michael Omi, University of California, Berkeley
Author
Kim, Claire Jean is Professor of Political Science and Asian American Studies at University of California, Irvine. Her writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and Ms. Magazine. Her two previous books, Bitter Fruit: The Politics of Black-Korean Conflict and Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species and Nature in a Multicultural Age, have both won best book awards from the American Political Science Association. Kim has been a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study and the University of California Humanities Research Institute.
Description:
An exploration of how Asian Americans are uniquely positioned relative to whites and Black people in the U.S. racial order.
For scholarly and lay readers who are looking for a theoretically powerful, historically grounded, richly textured analysis of U.S. racial dynamics, with a special focus on how people of Asian descent have been positioned relative to whites and Black people for nearly two centuries.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Better Asians Than Blacks
Part I. Exclusion/Belonging
Part II. Ostracism/Initiation
Part III. Solidarity/Disavowal
Coda: Asian Americans and Anti-Blackness.
Review:
'Sure to elicit controversy and debate, Kim offers a stunning and provocative account of the racial positioning of Asian Americans in a pervasively anti-Black social order. In a work of enormous breadth, she challenges prevailing narratives and paradigms of Asian American history and politics by illustrating how Asian Americans have benefitted from anti-Blackness. Grasping the functionality of 'better than Black' for white supremacy becomes essential to imagining how anti-Asian racism might be framed and contested.' Michael Omi, University of California, Berkeley
Author
Kim, Claire Jean is Professor of Political Science and Asian American Studies at University of California, Irvine. Her writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and Ms. Magazine. Her two previous books, Bitter Fruit: The Politics of Black-Korean Conflict and Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species and Nature in a Multicultural Age, have both won best book awards from the American Political Science Association. Kim has been a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study and the University of California Humanities Research Institute.