Crossing the Racial Divide

Crossing the Racial Divide PDF Author: Kathleen Korgen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313014167
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
In interviews in cities and towns across the United States, from New York to Los Angeles, and from Madison to Dallas, members of 40 black and white pairs of friends reflect on how they became friends, how racial issues are addressed, and how their friendships have influenced their views and, in some cases, their actions. Utilizing a sociological framework to examine the friendships, Korgen offers readers a rare glimpse into an even rarer phenomenon and sheds light on important aspects of race relations in America. How do close friendships between blacks and whites develop? Why are cross-racial friendships so rare? How do these friendships navigate the issue of race? Crossing the Racial Divide answers these questions through a lively discussion of the problems and issues and through the voices of members of cross-racial friendships. In interviews in cities and towns across the United States, from New York to Los Angeles, and from Madison to Dallas, members of 40 black and white pairs of friends reflect on how they became friends, how racial issues are addressed, and how their friendships have influenced their views and, in some cases, their actions. Utilizing a sociological framework to examine the friendships, Korgen offers readers a rare glimpse into an even rarer phenomenon and sheds light on important aspects of race relations in America. Challenging both the traditional notion that blacks and whites are opposites and the increasingly popular notion of colorblindness, the author reveals that, while close black/white friendships follow the concept of homophily, we cannot just wish away the tensions and disparities that exist between most white and black Americans. Cross-racial friendships provide a unique perspective that makes racism and racial separation both more visible and more vulnerable. Put into sociological context, the stories revealed in this book make evident the institutional barriers existing between most black and white Americans and offer insight into the means to dismantle them.

Crossing the Racial Divide

Crossing the Racial Divide PDF Author: Kathleen Korgen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313014167
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Get Book

Book Description
In interviews in cities and towns across the United States, from New York to Los Angeles, and from Madison to Dallas, members of 40 black and white pairs of friends reflect on how they became friends, how racial issues are addressed, and how their friendships have influenced their views and, in some cases, their actions. Utilizing a sociological framework to examine the friendships, Korgen offers readers a rare glimpse into an even rarer phenomenon and sheds light on important aspects of race relations in America. How do close friendships between blacks and whites develop? Why are cross-racial friendships so rare? How do these friendships navigate the issue of race? Crossing the Racial Divide answers these questions through a lively discussion of the problems and issues and through the voices of members of cross-racial friendships. In interviews in cities and towns across the United States, from New York to Los Angeles, and from Madison to Dallas, members of 40 black and white pairs of friends reflect on how they became friends, how racial issues are addressed, and how their friendships have influenced their views and, in some cases, their actions. Utilizing a sociological framework to examine the friendships, Korgen offers readers a rare glimpse into an even rarer phenomenon and sheds light on important aspects of race relations in America. Challenging both the traditional notion that blacks and whites are opposites and the increasingly popular notion of colorblindness, the author reveals that, while close black/white friendships follow the concept of homophily, we cannot just wish away the tensions and disparities that exist between most white and black Americans. Cross-racial friendships provide a unique perspective that makes racism and racial separation both more visible and more vulnerable. Put into sociological context, the stories revealed in this book make evident the institutional barriers existing between most black and white Americans and offer insight into the means to dismantle them.

The Lines Between Us

The Lines Between Us PDF Author: Lawrence Lanahan
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620973456
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
A masterful narrative—with echoes of Evicted and The Color of Law—that brings to life the structures, policies, and beliefs that divide us Mark Lange and Nicole Smith have never met, but if they make the moves they are contemplating—Mark, a white suburbanite, to West Baltimore, and Nicole, a black woman from a poor city neighborhood, to a prosperous suburb—it will defy the way the Baltimore region has been programmed for a century. It is one region, but separate worlds. And it was designed to be that way. In this deeply reported, revelatory story, duPont Award–winning journalist Lawrence Lanahan chronicles how the region became so highly segregated and why its fault lines persist today. Mark and Nicole personify the enormous disparities in access to safe housing, educational opportunities, and decent jobs. As they eventually pack up their lives and change places, bold advocates and activists—in the courts and in the streets—struggle to figure out what it will take to save our cities and communities: Put money into poor, segregated neighborhoods? Make it possible for families to move into areas with more opportunity? The Lines Between Us is a riveting narrative that compels reflection on America's entrenched inequality—and on where the rubber meets the road not in the abstract, but in our own backyards. Taking readers from church sermons to community meetings to public hearings to protests to the Supreme Court to the death of Freddie Gray, Lanahan deftly exposes the intricacy of Baltimore's hypersegregation through the stories of ordinary people living it, shaping it, and fighting it, day in and day out. This eye-opening account of how a city creates its black and white places, its rich and poor spaces, reveals that these problems are not intractable; but they are designed to endure until each of us—despite living in separate worlds—understands we have something at stake.

Crossing Racial Boundaries

Crossing Racial Boundaries PDF Author: Kenneth Myambo
Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1640039619
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
The book recounts my struggles and suffering under colonial oppression in Southern Africa (Rhodesia). It exposes a vicious cycle of racial hatred perpetrated against black people by white supremacists on my homeland and abroad. I was discriminated and deprived of individual rights because of the color of my skin. In education, I was segregated and confronted with conflicting irreconcilable cultural and social values from the West. I was denied equal justice and access to education with restricted freedoms to choose where to live, assemble, or who to marry and associate with. Through a series of unfortunate political events and circumstances, I took up arms and fought for freedom in my homeland. I was imprisoned and persecuted for sedition and was accused of political treason without due process. During this period, I found sanctuary in my American and Canadian teachers, who catapulted me to study science at American universities in California. Even then, I continued to suffer the horrors of racism implicitly imbedded in white America. Remarkably, I would also find love and support across racial lines, and I was blessed with two beautiful biracial children born in America. With the passage of time, I came to terms with my difficult past and began to heal from the indelible wounds of racism. With renewed hope for freedom in America, I harnessed the healing power of love and forgiveness across racial barriers. Sadly, my dreams were unpredictably shattered by the death of my twenty-seven-year-old daughter in an auto accident, leading me to question the meaning and purpose of life on this cosmic journey of existence.

Crossing the Hall

Crossing the Hall PDF Author: Lori Wojtowicz
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1546248862
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
Having graduated from a small, private, and predominantly white college in 1977, I thought I was highly educated. After all, I had graduated magna cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa had taught me the secret handshake. I began teaching, confident in my knowledge. For the first few years of my thirty-five-year career, I taught higher level English courses composed mostly of white students. Even though there was a great diversity in my high school, I never questioned why there were so very few black students in my class. Where were they? Then my schedule changed, and I crossed the hall to teach African American Literature. My new students were all black. I am all white. My true education began with those steps across a hall.

Roots of Division

Roots of Division PDF Author: Curtis Chesney
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781735770413
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Do you notice racial inequalities (in education, income, housing, incarcerations) and feel the related tensions (in politics, social media, church, friendships) and even know some of the history (supremacy, slavery, segregation) but struggle to grasp why race continues to divide America? Curtis Chesney wrestled with that question for years. As a skeptic, he wanted concrete answers. And as a White man, he needed to face disturbing truths, including slavery on his ancestors' farm--injustice committed by Chesney men. So he dug through the parallel histories of his family and his nation, uncovering roots of today's racial division across several centuries of inequity in America. Chesney's findings forever changed his perspective on our past, deepened his understanding of our present, and clarified his hopes for our future.

The Bridge over the Racial Divide

The Bridge over the Racial Divide PDF Author: William Julius Wilson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520927192
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
In a work that will significantly influence the political discussion with respect to race and class politics, one of the country's most influential sociologists focuses on the rising inequality in American society and the need for a progressive, multiracial political coalition to combat it. The culmination of decades of distinguished scholarship, The Bridge over the Racial Divide brilliantly demonstrates how political power is disproportionately concentrated among the most advantaged segments of society and how the monetary, trade, and tax policies of recent years have deepened this power imbalance. Developing his earlier views on race in contemporary society, William Julius Wilson gives a simple, straightforward, and crucially important diagnosis of the problem of rising social inequality in the United States and details a set of recommendations for dealing with it. Wilson argues that as long as middle- and working-class groups are fragmented along racial lines, they will fail to see how their combined efforts could change the political imbalance and thus promote policies that reflect their interests. He shows how a vision of American society that highlights racial differences rather than commonalities makes it difficult for Americans to see the need and appreciate the potential for mutual political support across racial lines. Multiracial political cooperation could be enhanced if we can persuade groups to focus more on the interests they hold in common, including overcoming stagnating and declining real incomes that relate to changes in the global economy, Wilson argues. He advocates a cross-race, class-based alliance of working-and middle-class Americans to pursue policies that will deal with the eroding strength of the nation's equalizing institutions, including public education, unions, and political structures that promote the interests of ordinary families. He also advocates a reconstructed "affirmative opportunity" program that benefits African Americans without antagonizing whites. Using theoretical arguments and case studies, Wilson examines how a broad-based political constituency can be created, sustained, and energized. Bold, provocative, and thoughtful, The Bridge over the Racial Divide is an essential resource in considering some of the most pressing issues facing the American public today. This book is a copublication with the Russell Sage Foundation.

Crossing the Racial Divide

Crossing the Racial Divide PDF Author: Richard Jerome Braxton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description


Crossing Lines

Crossing Lines PDF Author: Marc Coronado
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 9780970038418
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Crossing Lines addresses the issues of race and mixed race at the turn of the 21st century. Representing multiple academic disciplines, the volume invites readers to consider the many ways that identity, community, and collectivity are formed, while addressing the challenges that multiracial identity poses to our understanding of race and ethnicity.

Beyond Reconciliation

Beyond Reconciliation PDF Author: Terry Roberts
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781092525213
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
The racial divide running through America involves ethnic, cultural, historical, and political differences. That divide also affects the Church in America, which remains 93 percent monocultural. Although multi-ethnic congregations represent a growing phenomenon, they often face the challenges of racial and political tensions that threaten their unity. Congregations that successfully navigate these challenges carry the potential to help heal the nation's racial divisions. The reconciliation movement has done much to bring believers together across racial lines. Now, it is time for the Church to take the next step in that process and to move beyond reconciliation to Koinonia (biblical fellowship). With that in mind, Pastor Terry Roberts developed a practical plan to help members of his multi-racial church experience koinonia. This involved a six-week, small group experience that brought together black and white members for discovery, dialogue, and fellowship in a spiritual and relational atmosphere. This "Journey toward Koinonia" helped facilitate greater understanding and strengthen interracial relationships. This book shares that story and includes a Facilitator's Guide for others who may wish to conduct a "Journey" in their church or group.

Some of My Friends Are...

Some of My Friends Are... PDF Author: Deborah Plummer
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807024015
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Examines why it’s difficult to form friendships with people of different races, how we can make those connections, and how they will encourage more meaningful conversations about race. Surveys have shown that the majority of people believe cross-racial friendships are essential for improving race relations. However, further polling reveals that most Americans tend to gravitate toward friendships within their own race. Psychologist Deborah L. Plummer examines how factors such as leisure, politics, humor, faith, social media, and education influence the nature and intensity of cross-racial friendships. Inspiring and engaging, Plummer draws from focus groups, statistics, and surveys to provide insight into the fears and discomforts associated with cross-racial friendships. Through personal narratives and social analyses of friendship patterns, this book gives an insightful look at how cross-racial friendships work and fail within American society. Plummer encourages all of us to examine our friendship patterns and to deepen and strengthen our current cross-racial friendships.