About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherUniversity of Minnesota Press

ISBN-100816628130

ISBN-139780816628131

eBay Product ID (ePID)323453

Product Key Features

Number of Pages280 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication NameResisting State Violence : Radicalism, Gender, and Race in U. S. Culture

SubjectAnthropology / Cultural & Social, Violence in Society

Publication Year1996

TypeTextbook

AuthorJoy James

Subject AreaSocial Science

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.6 in

Item Weight13.9 Oz

Item Length9 in

Item Width5.9 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceCollege Audience

LCCN96-019868

Dewey Edition21

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal306.2/0973

Table Of ContentPart 1 Rage and resistance lessons: political life in theory; a Foucaldian metanarrative - erasing the spectacle of (radicalized) state violence; radicalizing language and law - Genocide, discrimination and human rights. Part 2 Colonial hangovers: US policies "at home" and abroad hunting prey - the invasion of Panama; the colour(s) of Eros - Cuba as US obsession; border crossing alliances - Japanese and African American women in state households. Part 3 Cultural politics: black women and sexual violence Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas - martyr heroism and gender abstractions; symbolic rage - prosecutorial performances and radicalized sexual violence; coalition crossfire - anti-violence organizing and interracial rape cases. Part 4 Teaching, community and political activism: "discredited knowledge" in the nonfiction of Toni Morrison; teaching "gender, race and class" and the "integration" of multiculturalism; "gender, race and radicalism" - reading the autobiographies of native and African American women activists; conclusion - UN conventions, anti-racist feminism and coalition politics.

SynopsisAn incendiary critique of contemporary American society that also offers concrete solutions for the dilemmas facing progressive politics. As the political climate of the United States moves rightward, effective and visionary voices from the left become both rarer and more essential. In Resisting State Violence, African American scholar-activist Joy James provides such a voice. Taking the convergence of race, gender, and class as fundamental trajectories, James offers a stimulating and iconoclastic account of a world in which the United States functions as the political-police center. At its core, Resisting State Violence is about the many ways the current structure of American government and society is inimical to human rights. James examines the prevalence of racist violence in U.S. policies, making provocative connections between seemingly disparate themes and events, and always, insistently, linking global and U.S. domestic politics. She creates a picture of a nation that consistently uses dehumanization to normalize and rationalize violence in foreign policy, all the while creating a domestic climate that pathologizes blackness and sexuality, portraying those most vulnerable to violence as its carriers. In the systematic and ubiquitous nature of state violence, however, James sees a possibility of hope in the building of coalitions across race, class, gender, and national divides. She argues that the very commonality that makes the system seem so overpowering can serve as the basis for resistance-that the elements that hold together a web of oppression and misuse of power also mark its vulnerabilities, especially when confronted with an equally systematic resistance. James offers concrete solutions for the dilemmas facing progressive politics and the individuals who work to achieve social justice. Resisting State Violence is a clear-sighted and uncompromising guidebook for those who want to understand the forces that hinder social change, and to effectively move beyond them.

LC Classification NumberE184.A1J27 1996