"Can We All Get Along?": Racial and Ethnic Minorities in American Politics (Dilemmas in American Politics)
Joel Olson contends that, given the history of slavery and segregation in the United States, American citizenship is a form of racial privilege in which whites are equal to each other but superior to everyone else. In Olson’s analysis we see how the tension in this equation produces a passive form of democracy that discourages extensive participation in politics because it treats citizenship as an identity to possess rather than as a source of empowerment. Olson traces this tension and its disenfranchising effects from the colonial era to our own, demonstrating how, after the civil rights movement, whiteness has become less a form of standing and more a norm that cements white advantages in the ordinary operations of modern society.
To break this pattern, Olson suggests an "abolitionist-democratic" political theory that makes the fight against racial discrimination a prerequisite for expanding democratic participation.
Joel Olson is assistant professor of political science at Northern Arizona University.
Country | USA |
Manufacturer | Univ Of Minnesota Press |
Binding | Kindle Edition |
ReleaseDate | 2004-08-13 |
Format | Kindle eBook |