The Enigma of Diversity

2015-05-15 Social Science

Author : Ellen Berrey
Release : 2015-05-15
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 37X/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis The Enigma of Diversity by : Ellen Berrey

Download or read book The Enigma of Diversity written by Ellen Berrey. This book was released on 2015-05-15. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diversity these days is a hallowed American value, widely shared and honored. That’s a remarkable change from the Civil Rights era—but does this public commitment to diversity constitute a civil rights victory? What does diversity mean in contemporary America, and what are the effects of efforts to support it? Ellen Berrey digs deep into those questions in The Enigma of Diversity. Drawing on six years of fieldwork and historical sources dating back to the 1950s and making extensive use of three case studies from widely varying arenas—housing redevelopment in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood, affirmative action in the University of Michigan’s admissions program, and the workings of the human resources department at a Fortune 500 company—Berrey explores the complicated, contradictory, and even troubling meanings and uses of diversity as it is invoked by different groups for different, often symbolic ends. In each case, diversity affirms inclusiveness, especially in the most coveted jobs and colleges, yet it resists fundamental change in the practices and cultures that are the foundation of social inequality. Berrey shows how this has led racial progress itself to be reimagined, transformed from a legal fight for fundamental rights to a celebration of the competitive advantages afforded by cultural differences. Powerfully argued and surprising in its conclusions, The Enigma of Diversity reveals the true cost of the public embrace of diversity: the taming of demands for racial justice.

The Enigma of Clarence Thomas

2019-09-24 Biography & Autobiography

Author : Corey Robin
Release : 2019-09-24
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 844/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis The Enigma of Clarence Thomas by : Corey Robin

Download or read book The Enigma of Clarence Thomas written by Corey Robin. This book was released on 2019-09-24. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Enigma of Clarence Thomas is a groundbreaking revisionist take on the Supreme Court justice everyone knows about but no one knows. “One of the marvels of Robin’s razor-sharp book is how carefully he marshals his evidence.... It isn’t every day that reading about ideas can be both so gratifying and unsettling.” – The New York Times Most people can tell you two things about Clarence Thomas: Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment, and he almost never speaks from the bench. Here are some things they don’t know: Thomas is a black nationalist. In college he memorized the speeches of Malcolm X. He believes white people are incurably racist. In the first examination of its kind, Corey Robin– one of the foremost analysts of the right (The Reactionary Mind) – delves deeply into both Thomas’s biography and his jurisprudence, masterfully reading his Supreme Court opinions against the backdrop of his autobiographical and political writings and speeches. The hidden source of Thomas’s conservative views, Robin shows, is a profound skepticism that racism can be overcome. Thomas is convinced that any government action on behalf of African-Americans will be tainted by racism; the most African-Americans can hope for is that white people will get out of their way. There’s a reason, Robin concludes, why liberals often complain that Thomas doesn’t speak but seldom pay attention when he does. Were they to listen, they’d hear a racial pessimism that often sounds similar to their own. Cutting across the ideological spectrum, this unacknowledged consensus about the impossibility of progress is key to understanding today’s political stalemate.

Rights on Trial

2017-06-22 Business & Economics

Author : Ellen Berrey
Release : 2017-06-22
Genre : Business & Economics
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 85X/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Rights on Trial by : Ellen Berrey

Download or read book Rights on Trial written by Ellen Berrey. This book was released on 2017-06-22. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gerry Handley faced years of blatant race-based harassment before he filed a complaint against his employer: racist jokes, signs reading “KKK” in his work area, and even questions from coworkers as to whether he had sex with his daughter as slaves supposedly did. He had an unusually strong case, with copious documentation and coworkers’ support, and he settled for $50,000, even winning back his job. But victory came at a high cost. Legal fees cut into Mr. Handley’s winnings, and tensions surrounding the lawsuit poisoned the workplace. A year later, he lost his job due to downsizing by his company. Mr. Handley exemplifies the burden plaintiffs bear in contemporary civil rights litigation. In the decades since the civil rights movement, we’ve made progress, but not nearly as much as it might seem. On the surface, America’s commitment to equal opportunity in the workplace has never been clearer. Virtually every company has antidiscrimination policies in place, and there are laws designed to protect these rights across a range of marginalized groups. But, as Ellen Berrey, Robert L. Nelson, and Laura Beth Nielsen compellingly show, this progressive vision of the law falls far short in practice. When aggrieved individuals turn to the law, the adversarial character of litigation imposes considerable personal and financial costs that make plaintiffs feel like they’ve lost regardless of the outcome of the case. Employer defendants also are dissatisfied with the system, often feeling “held up” by what they see as frivolous cases. And even when the case is resolved in the plaintiff’s favor, the conditions that gave rise to the lawsuit rarely change. In fact, the contemporary approach to workplace discrimination law perversely comes to reinforce the very hierarchies that antidiscrimination laws were created to redress. Based on rich interviews with plaintiffs, attorneys, and representatives of defendants and an original national dataset on case outcomes, Rights on Trial reveals the fundamental flaws of workplace discrimination law and offers practical recommendations for how we might better respond to persistent patterns of discrimination.

Diversity's Child

2021-08-05 Political Science

Author : Efrén O. Pérez
Release : 2021-08-05
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 13X/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Diversity's Child by : Efrén O. Pérez

Download or read book Diversity's Child written by Efrén O. Pérez. This book was released on 2021-08-05. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction : Marable's forecast -- The elusive quest for people of color -- People of color, unite! -- The many faces of people of color -- New wine in new bottles -- I feel your pain, brother -- Galvanizing people of color -- Falling apart -- Conclusion : people of color in a diversifying world.

In the Shadow of Race

2007-09-15 Family & Relationships

Author : Victoria Hattam
Release : 2007-09-15
Genre : Family & Relationships
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 237/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis In the Shadow of Race by : Victoria Hattam

Download or read book In the Shadow of Race written by Victoria Hattam. This book was released on 2007-09-15. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Race in the United States has long been associated with heredity and inequality while ethnicity has been linked to language and culture. In the Shadow of Race recovers the history of this entrenched distinction and the divisive politics it engenders. Victoria Hattam locates the origins of ethnicity in the New York Zionist movement of the early 1900s. In a major revision of widely held assumptions, she argues that Jewish activists identified as ethnics not as a means of assimilating and becoming white, but rather as a way of defending immigrant difference as distinct from race—rooted in culture rather than body and blood. Eventually, Hattam shows, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Census Bureau institutionalized this distinction by classifying Latinos as an ethnic group and not a race. But immigration and the resulting population shifts of the last half century have created a political opening for reimagining the relationship between immigration and race. How to do so is the question at hand. In the Shadow of Race concludes by examining the recent New York and Los Angeles elections and the 2006 immigrant rallies across the country to assess the possibilities of forging a more robust alliance between immigrants and African Americans. Such an alliance is needed, Hattam argues, to more effectively redress the persistent inequalities in American life.

Popular eBooks

The Enigma of Clarence Thomas

Rights on Trial

Diversity's Child

In the Shadow of Race

You may also like...