Not all racial incidents are racist incidents; Lawrence Blum says. "We need a more varied and nuanced moral vocabulary for talking about the arena of race. We should not be faced with a choice of 'racism' or nothing." Use of the word "racism" is pervasive: An article about the NAACP's criticism of television networks for casting too few "minority" actors in lead roles asks; "Is television a racist institution?" A white girl in Virginia says it is racist for her African-American teacher to wear African attire.Blum argues that a growing tendency to castigate as "racism" everything that goes wrong in the racial domain reduces the term's power to evoke moral outrage. In "I'm Not a Racist; But . . ."; Blum develops a historically grounded account of racism as the deeply morally-charged notion it has become. He addresses the question whether people of color can be racist; defines types of racism; and identifies debased and inappropriate usages of the term. Though racial insensitivity; racial anxiety; racial ignorance and racial injustice are; in his view; not "racism;" they are racial ills that should elicit moral concern.Blum argues that "race" itself; even when not serving distinct racial malfeasance; is a morally destructive idea; implying moral distance and unequal worth. History and genetic science reveal both the avoidability and the falsity of the idea of race. Blum argues that we can give up the idea of race; but must recognize that racial groups' historical and social experience has been shaped by having been treated as if they were races.
#1105199 in Books Cornell University Press 2008-04-10Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.17 x .90 x 6.48l; 1.08 #File Name: 080143761X264 pages
Review
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful. A death-embracing cultureBy Kerry WaltersMark Schantz's eagerly anticipated Awaiting the Heavenly Country will inevitably be compared to Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering. Faust; whose book beat Schantz's to the bookstores by just a few months; has explored death and the Civil War for several years; and some of the themes her book explores--for example; 19th century American notions of the good death; disposal of huge quantities of corpses; and rituals of mourning--are also investigated by Schantz.But it would be a pity to regard Schantz's book as a redundant late-comer; because it complements more than duplicates Faust's work. Ironically; this is because Schantz's book doesn't really live up to its subtitle: The Civil War and America's Culture of Death. Schantz actually has relatively little to say about the Civil War. He's much more concerned with exploring the "death-embracing" culture of antebellum America; that "shared body of cultural assumptions and attitudes about death that helped to sustain a war that fractured a nation" by making it "easier to kill and be killed" (pp. 4; 2). To this end; he explores the sheer ubiquity of death in antebellum America (Chapter 1); antebellum notions of heaven (Chapter 2); the ethos of cemeteries and heroism (Chapter 3); antebellum death poetry in the "Southern Literary Messenger" (Chapter 4); the perceived relationship between a good death and freedom (Chapter 5); and depictions of death in memorial lithography and postmortem photos (Chapter 6).Schantz's treatment of death in antebellum America is closely documented and frequently insightful (especially interesting is his analysis of the influence of classical Greco-Roman models on the nation's understanding of heroism; pp. 86-96). Chapter 5's discussion of good death; freedom; and slavery offers the closest tie-in with explicitly Civil War themes; the other chapters make only tangential connections. That's why I would suggest Schantz's book as a quite good prologue to Faust's; which deals much more explicitly with the Civil War.In his epilogue (pp. 207-10); Schantz reminds us that it's anachronistic to think that basic presumptions about life and death held by the Civil War generation are similar (much less identical) to ours today. We may be tempted to think so because of the influence of popular films and novels; but we should resist the temptation. It was a different time and a different ethos; and nothing so underscores this fact than the difference between the "death-embracing" ethos of early 19th century America and the "death-denying" one of our own day. In reminding us of this point; Schantz not only helps us to keep our understanding of the period in perspective. He also sheds valuable light for us on how and why the nation coped with the colossal death and destruction of its only civil war.0 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Quick read very informativeBy deborah tatroI really enjoyed the detail and social history. It was very nicly written and makes a quicki read. The examples of social differences between 20th century and 19th century views on death and mourning are many.0 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Attitudes regarding death before; during and after our civil war.By Alan R. DimickAn interesting and informative review of the attitudes about death before; during and after our civil war. It is amazing what attitudes they had at these times.
