The World Is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy Since WWII

Rating:
Summary: Making sense of the race scene--taking a chance
Review: I bought this book because I was having trouble with the current race scene in the U.S. Too many black people locked up, too much racial inequality, too many cops killing blacks. Winant puts racism in a historical and international context I had not thought of before. This book shows why the world is in a new stage of racial (and racist) history now, both in America and elsewhere. Destined to be a classic!

Rating:
Summary: The hard questions about race
Review: This book is for anyone bothered by the hard questions about race: Why is race both invisible and so evident in the large and small details of our lives? How did racism become, in only several recent decades, morally and culturally repugnant, but at the same time we seem unable to deal with or recognize its obvious effects? How have we come to entrust leaders with the decision whether equality has gone "too far" who opposed it from it's beginnings (such as the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who opposed the Brown v. Board of Education decision integrating the schools)? Why do we look at racial issues and history so provincially, rather than taking a much more revealing global focus?

Winant explains all this and more. It's a must read for anyone who cares about race, equality or democracy.