Postracial America

Download Postracial America full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Postracial America ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

Post-Racial or Most-Racial?

Author : Michael Tesler
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022635315X
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (263 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Post-Racial or Most-Racial? by : Michael Tesler

Download or read book Post-Racial or Most-Racial? written by Michael Tesler and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-04-04 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Barack Obama won the presidency, many posited that we were entering into a post-racial period in American politics. Regrettably, the reality hasn’t lived up to that expectation. Instead, Americans’ political beliefs have become significantly more polarized by racial considerations than they had been before Obama’s presidency—in spite of his administration’s considerable efforts to neutralize the political impact of race. Michael Tesler shows how, in the years that followed the 2008 election—a presidential election more polarized by racial attitudes than any other in modern times—racial considerations have come increasingly to influence many aspects of political decision making. These range from people’s evaluations of prominent politicians and the parties to issues seemingly unrelated to race like assessments of public policy or objective economic conditions. Some people even displayed more positive feelings toward Obama’s dog, Bo, when they were told he belonged to Ted Kennedy. More broadly, Tesler argues that the rapidly intensifying influence of race in American politics is driving the polarizing partisan divide and the vitriolic atmosphere that has come to characterize American politics. One of the most important books on American racial politics in recent years, Post-Racial or Most-Racial? is required reading for anyone wishing to understand what has happened in the United States during Obama’s presidency and how it might shape the country long after he leaves office.

Postracial America?

Author : Vincent L. Stephens
Publisher : Bucknell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1611487803
Total Pages : 221 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (114 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Postracial America? by : Vincent L. Stephens

Download or read book Postracial America? written by Vincent L. Stephens and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-17 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of a “postracial” America —the dream of a nation beyond race — has attracted much attention over the course of the presidency of Barack Obama, suggesting that this idea is peculiar to the contemporary moment alone. Postracial America? An Interdisciplinary Study attempts to broaden the application of this idea by situating it in contexts that demonstrate how the idea of the postracial has been with America since its founding and will continue to be long after the Obama administration’s term ends. The chapters in this volume explore the idea of the postracial in the United States through a variety of critical lenses, including film studies; literature; aesthetics and conceptual thinking; politics; media representations; race in relation to gender, identity, and sexuality; and personal experiences. Through this diverse interdisciplinary exploration, this collection skeptically weighs the implications of holding up a postracial culture as an admirable goal for the United States.

Pre-Post-Racial America

Author : Sandhya Rani Jha
Publisher : Chalice Press
ISBN 13 : 0827244924
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (272 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Pre-Post-Racial America by : Sandhya Rani Jha

Download or read book Pre-Post-Racial America written by Sandhya Rani Jha and published by Chalice Press. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Those people. Their issues. The day's news and the ways we treat each other, overtly or subliminally, prove we are not yet living in post-racial America. It's hard to talk about race in America without everyone very quickly becoming defensive and shutting down. What makes talking race even harder is that so few of us actually know each other in the fullness of our stories. A recent Reuters poll found 40% of White people have no friends of other races, and 25% of people of color only have friends of the same race. Sandhya Rani Jha addresses the hot topic in a way that is grounded in real people's stories and that offers solid biblical grounding for thinking about race relations in America, reminding us that God calls us to build Beloved Community. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter provide starting points for reading groups.

The Obamas and a (Post) Racial America?

Author : Gregory Parks
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019978129X
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Obamas and a (Post) Racial America? by : Gregory Parks

Download or read book The Obamas and a (Post) Racial America? written by Gregory Parks and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-28 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States has taken a long and winding road to racial equality, especially as it pertains to relations between blacks and whites. When Barack Hussein Obama was elected as the forty-fourth President of the United States and first black person to occupy the highest office in the land, many wondered whether that road had finally come to an end. Do we now live in a post-racial nation? This volume contends that despite the election of the first black President and rise of a black American family as possibly the most recognized family the world over, race is still a very salient issue-particularly in the United States. But the prominence of the Obamas on the world stage and the positive image they project may hasten the day when America is indeed post-racial, even at the implicit level.

Color Matters

Author : Kimberly Jade Norwood
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 131781956X
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (178 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Color Matters by : Kimberly Jade Norwood

Download or read book Color Matters written by Kimberly Jade Norwood and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-17 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States, as in many parts of the world, people are discriminated against based on the color of their skin. This type of skin tone bias, or colorism, is both related to and distinct from discrimination on the basis of race, with which it is often conflated. Preferential treatment of lighter skin tones over darker occurs within racial and ethnic groups as well as between them. While America has made progress in issues of race over the past decades, discrimination on the basis of color continues to be a constant and often unremarked part of life. In Color Matters, Kimberly Jade Norwood has collected the most up-to-date research on this insidious form of discrimination, including perspectives from the disciplines of history, law, sociology, and psychology. Anchored with historical chapters that show how the influence and legacy of slavery have shaped the treatment of skin color in American society, the contributors to this volume bring to light the ways in which colorism affects us all--influencing what we wear, who we see on television, and even which child we might pick to adopt. Sure to be an eye-opening collection for anyone curious about how race and color continue to affect society, Color Matters provides students of race in America with wide-ranging overview of a crucial topic.

Ghosts of Jim Crow

Author : F. Michael Higginbotham
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479845019
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Ghosts of Jim Crow by : F. Michael Higginbotham

Download or read book Ghosts of Jim Crow written by F. Michael Higginbotham and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-05-08 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the political, economic, educational, and social reasons the United States is not a "post-racial" society and argues that legal reform can successfully create a "post-racial" America.

Obama's Race

Author : Michael Tesler
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226793842
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (267 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Obama's Race by : Michael Tesler

Download or read book Obama's Race written by Michael Tesler and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barack Obama’s presidential victory naturally led people to believe that the United States might finally be moving into a post-racial era. Obama’s Race—and its eye-opening account of the role played by race in the election—paints a dramatically different picture. The authors argue that the 2008 election was more polarized by racial attitudes than any other presidential election on record—and perhaps more significantly, that there were two sides to this racialization: resentful opposition to and racially liberal support for Obama. As Obama’s campaign was given a boost in the primaries from racial liberals that extended well beyond that usually offered to ideologically similar white candidates, Hillary Clinton lost much of her longstanding support and instead became the preferred candidate of Democratic racial conservatives. Time and again, voters’ racial predispositions trumped their ideological preferences as John McCain—seldom described as conservative in matters of race—became the darling of racial conservatives from both parties. Hard-hitting and sure to be controversial, Obama’s Race will be both praised and criticized—but certainly not ignored.

America Is Not Post-Racial

Author : Algernon Austin
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1440841268
Total Pages : 185 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (48 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis America Is Not Post-Racial by : Algernon Austin

Download or read book America Is Not Post-Racial written by Algernon Austin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-09-09 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first in-depth examination of the 25 million Americans with the most intense hatred of President Obama—arguably the most Republican-friendly of recent Democratic presidents—and what the mindsets of these "Obama Haters" teach us about race and ethnicity in America today. Despite the fact that President Obama was raised by a white mother and white grandparents, and has two degrees from Ivy League universities, he has still been subject to intense racial hatred from a large number of Americans. Even after Obama's presidency, the "Obama Haters"—and their xenophobia, Islamophobia, and racism—will continue to shape American politics. America is certainly not post-racial, argues author Algernon Austin, PhD, a noted sociologist and author on racial issues who consults on race, politics, and economics in Washington, DC. In this book, he uses the Obama Haters as an appropriate jumping-off point to consider what strategies might begin to reduce racial animosity in the United States—a real concern, considering that demographic trends are likely to exacerbate and escalate race-based hatred in our society. Austin sets the stage for the discussion by establishing that President Obama is hardly liberal in the eyes of liberal political activists, raising the question of why Obama is so intensely hated by some conservatives. He then compares the views of the Obama Haters—estimated to be some 25 million strong—with conservatives, moderates, and liberals who are not Obama Haters. The author shows how the Obama Haters are distinctly more xenophobic, Islamophobic, and racist than political conservatives who are not Obama Haters, underscoring the fact that the Obama Haters are motivated by more than just conservatism.

The Post-Racial Mystique

Author : Catherine Squires
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814762891
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Post-Racial Mystique by : Catherine Squires

Download or read book The Post-Racial Mystique written by Catherine Squires and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2014-04-04 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite claims from pundits and politicians that we now live in a post-racial America, people seem to keep finding ways to talk about race—from celebrations of the inauguration of the first Black president to resurgent debates about police profiling, race and racism remain salient features of our world. When faced with fervent anti-immigration sentiments, record incarceration rates of Blacks and Latinos, and deepening socio-economic disparities, a new question has erupted in the last decade: What does being post-racial mean? The Post-Racial Mystique explores how a variety of media—the news, network television, and online, independent media—debate, define and deploy the term “post-racial” in their representations of American politics and society. Using examples from both mainstream and niche media—from prime-time television series to specialty Christian media and audience interactions on social media—Catherine Squires draws upon a variety of disciplines including communication studies, sociology, political science, and cultural studies in order to understand emergent strategies for framing post-racial America. She reveals the ways in which media texts cast U.S. history, re-imagine interpersonal relationships, employ statistics, and inventively redeploy other identity categories in a quest to formulate different ways of responding to race.

Barack Obama and the Myth of a Post-Racial America

Author : Mark Ledwidge
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135080518
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (35 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Barack Obama and the Myth of a Post-Racial America by : Mark Ledwidge

Download or read book Barack Obama and the Myth of a Post-Racial America written by Mark Ledwidge and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2008 presidential election was celebrated around the world as a seminal moment in U.S. political and racial history. White liberals and other progressives framed the election through the prism of change, while previously acknowledged demographic changes were hastily heralded as the dawn of a "post-racial" America. However, by 2011, much of the post-election idealism had dissipated in the wake of an on-going economic and financial crisis, escalating wars in Afghanistan and Libya, and the rise of the right-wing Tea Party movement. By placing Obama in the historical context of U.S. race relations, this volume interrogates the idealized and progressive view of American society advanced by much of the mainstream literature on Obama. Barack Obama and the Myth of a Post-Racial America takes a careful look at the historical, cultural and political dimensions of race in the United States, using an interdisciplinary analysis that incorporates approaches from history, political science, and sociology. Each chapter addresses controversial issues such as whether Obama can be considered an African-American president, whether his presidency actually delivered the kind of deep-rooted changes that were initially prophesised, and whether Obama has abandoned his core African-American constituency in favour of projecting a race-neutral approach designed to maintain centrist support. Through cutting edge, critically informed, and cross-disciplinary analyses, this collection directly addresses the dimensions of race in American society through the lens of Obama’s election and presidency.

Acting White?

Author : Devon W. Carbado
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199700060
Total Pages : 211 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Acting White? by : Devon W. Carbado

Download or read book Acting White? written by Devon W. Carbado and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-19 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to "act black" or "act white"? Is race merely a matter of phenotype, or does it come from the inflection of a person's speech, the clothes in her closet, how she chooses to spend her time and with whom she chooses to spend it? What does it mean to be "really" black, and who gets to make that judgment? In Acting White?, leading scholars of race and the law Devon Carbado and Mitu Gulati argue that, in spite of decades of racial progress and the pervasiveness of multicultural rhetoric, racial judgments are often based not just on skin color, but on how a person conforms to behavior stereotypically associated with a certain race. Specifically, racial minorities are judged on how they "perform" their race. This performance pervades every aspect of their daily life, whether it's the clothes they wear, the way they style their hair, the institutions with which they affiliate, their racial politics, the people they befriend, date or marry, where they live, how they speak, and their outward mannerisms and demeanor. Employing these cues, decision-makers decide not simply whether a person is black but the degree to which she or he is so. Relying on numerous examples from the workplace, higher education, and police interactions, the authors demonstrate that, for African Americans, the costs of "acting black" are high, and so are the pressures to "act white." But, as the authors point out, "acting white" has costs as well. Provocative yet never doctrinaire, Acting White? will boldly challenge your assumptions and make you think about racial prejudice from a fresh vantage point.

Nation of Cowards

Author : David H. Ikard
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253007011
Total Pages : 174 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Nation of Cowards by : David H. Ikard

Download or read book Nation of Cowards written by David H. Ikard and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument for intense and organized activism from the African American community to generate discussion on race in the United States. In a speech from which Nation of Cowards derives its title, Attorney General Eric Holder argued forcefully that Americans today need to talk more—not less—about racism. This appeal for candid talk about race exposes the paradox of Barack Obama’s historic rise to the US presidency and the ever-increasing social and economic instability of African American communities. David H. Ikard and Martell Lee Teasley maintain that such a conversation can take place only with passionate and organized pressure from Black Americans, and that neither Obama nor any political figure is likely to be in the forefront of addressing issues of racial inequality and injustice. The authors caution Blacks not to slip into an accommodating and self-defeating “post-racial” political posture, settling for the symbolic capital of a Black president instead of demanding structural change. They urge the Black community to challenge the social terms on which it copes with oppression, including acts of self-imposed victimization. “A clarion call to our nation’s conscience. Free from overly academic jargon, but full of powerful wordplay and brilliant juxtapositions, this book is a fascinating tour de force from start to finish. Those seeking a clear and concise explanation of the state of African America and the ongoing need for a “black agenda” during—and even after—the administration of the first African American president need look no further.” —Reiland Rabaka, author of The Hip Hop Movement and Du Bois: A Critical Introduction “Nation of Cowards offers an analysis of the Obama administration is as thorough as it is compact. Here are the hard questions that must be asked of the first black presidency and an insightful draft of how history may regard it. Ikard and Teasley are well ahead of that curve.” —Jelani Cobb, author of The Substance of Hope:Barack Obama & the Paradox of Progress

Beyond Discrimination

Author : Fredrick C. Harris
Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN 13 : 1610448170
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (14 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Beyond Discrimination by : Fredrick C. Harris

Download or read book Beyond Discrimination written by Fredrick C. Harris and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2013-06-30 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly a half century after the civil rights movement, racial inequality remains a defining feature of American life. Along a wide range of social and economic dimensions, African Americans consistently lag behind whites. This troubling divide has persisted even as many of the obvious barriers to equality, such as state-sanctioned segregation and overt racial hostility, have markedly declined. How then can we explain the stubborn persistence of racial inequality? In Beyond Discrimination: Racial Inequality in a Post-Racist Era, a diverse group of scholars provides a more precise understanding of when and how racial inequality can occur without its most common antecedents, prejudice and discrimination. Beyond Discrimination focuses on the often hidden political, economic and historical mechanisms that now sustain the black-white divide in America. The first set of chapters examines the historical legacies that have shaped contemporary race relations. Desmond King reviews the civil rights movement to pinpoint why racial inequality became an especially salient issue in American politics. He argues that while the civil rights protests led the federal government to enforce certain political rights, such as the right to vote, addressing racial inequities in housing, education, and income never became a national priority. The volume then considers the impact of racial attitudes in American society and institutions. Phillip Goff outlines promising new collaborations between police departments and social scientists that will improve the measurement of racial bias in policing. The book finally focuses on the structural processes that perpetuate racial inequality. Devin Fergus discusses an obscure set of tax and insurance policies that, without being overtly racially drawn, penalizes residents of minority neighborhoods and imposes an economic handicap on poor blacks and Latinos. Naa Oyo Kwate shows how apparently neutral and apolitical market forces concentrate fast food and alcohol advertising in minority urban neighborhoods to the detriment of the health of the community. As it addresses the most pressing arenas of racial inequality, from education and employment to criminal justice and health, Beyond Discrimination exposes the unequal consequences of the ordinary workings of American society. It offers promising pathways for future research on the growing complexity of race relations in the United States.

The Colorblind Screen

Author : Sarah E. Turner
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479893331
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Colorblind Screen by : Sarah E. Turner

Download or read book The Colorblind Screen written by Sarah E. Turner and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The election of President Barack Obama signaled for many the realization of a post-racial America, a nation in which racism was no longer a defining social, cultural, and political issue. While many Americans espouse a colorblind racial ideology and publicly endorse the broad goals of integration and equal treatment without regard to race, in actuality this attitude serves to reify and legitimize racism and protects racial privileges by denying and minimizing the effects of systematic and institutionalized racism. Ina The Colorblind Screen, the contributors examine televisionOCOs role as the major discursive medium in the articulation and contestation of racialized identities in the United States. While the dominant mode of televisual racialization has shifted to a colorblind ideology that foregrounds racial differences in order to celebrate multicultural assimilation, the volume investigates how this practice denies the significant social, economic, and political realities and inequalities that continue to define race relations today. Focusing on such iconic figures as President Obama, LeBron James, and Oprah Winfrey, many chapters examine the ways in which race is read by television audiences and fans. Other essays focus on how visual constructions of race in dramas likea 24, a Sleeper Cell, anda The Wanted acontinue to conflate Arab and Muslim identities in post-9/11 television. The volume offers an important intervention in the study of the televisual representation of race, engaging with multiple aspects of the mythologies developing around notions of a post-racial America and the duplicitous discursive rationale offered by the ideology of colorblindness."

Are We All Postracial Yet?

Author : David Theo Goldberg
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 0745689752
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (456 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Are We All Postracial Yet? by : David Theo Goldberg

Download or read book Are We All Postracial Yet? written by David Theo Goldberg and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-09-09 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We hear much talk about the advent of a “postracial” age. The election of Barack Obama as President of the U.S. was held by many to be proof that we have once and for all moved beyond race. The Swedish government has even gone so far as to erase all references to race from its legislative documents. However, as Ferguson, MO, and countless social statistics show, beneath such claims lurk more sinister shadows of the racial everyday, institutional, and structural racisms persist and renew themselves beneath the polish of nonraciality. A conundrum lies at its very heart as seen when the election of a Black President was taken to be the pinnacle of postraciality. In this sparkling essay, David Theo Goldberg seeks to explain this conundrum, and reveals how the postracial is merely the afterlife of race, not its demise. Postraciality is the new logic of raciality.

Race Still Matters

Author : Yuya Kiuchi
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 1438462735
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Race Still Matters by : Yuya Kiuchi

Download or read book Race Still Matters written by Yuya Kiuchi and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays debunking the notion that contemporary America is a colorblind society. More than half a century after the civil rights era of the mid-1950s to the late 1960s, American society is often characterized as postracial. In other words, that the country has moved away from prejudice based on skin color and we live in a colorblind society. The reality, however, is the opposite. African Americans continue to face both explicit and latent discriminations in housing, healthcare, education, and every facet of their lives. Recent cases involving law enforcement officers shooting unarmed Black men also attest to the reality: the problem of the twenty-first century is still the problem of the color line. In Race Still Matters, contributors drawn from a wide array of disciplines use multidisciplinary methods to explore topics such as Black family experiences, hate crimes, race and popular culture, residual discrimination, economic and occupational opportunity gaps, healthcare disparities, education, law enforcement issues, youth culture, and the depiction of Black female athletes. The volume offers irrefutable evidence that race still very much matters in the United States today.

The Sellout

Author : Paul Beatty
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374712247
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (747 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Sellout by : Paul Beatty

Download or read book The Sellout written by Paul Beatty and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Man Booker Prize Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction Winner of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature New York Times Bestseller Los Angeles Times Bestseller Named One of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsweek, The Denver Post, BuzzFeed, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly Named a "Must-Read" by Flavorwire and New York Magazine's "Vulture" Blog A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality—the black Chinese restaurant. Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens—on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles—the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral. Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident—the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins—he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.