Kwame Dixon

Race, Solidarity, and Citizenship

These two new books examine minority rights theory and the struggle of minority communities in the Americas. Juliet Hooker’s Race and the Politics of Solidarity critically examines how leading Western democracies and political theorists have failed to deal with minority rights: her case study however, focuses on Nicaragua’s multicultural model. Bettina Ng’weno’s Turf Wars: Territory and Citizenship in the Contemporary State is a probing analysis of the struggle by two Afro communities and their efforts to secure titles to territories on the Pacific Coast of Colombia. In different but complimentary ways, both books place the issues of minority rights, multiculturalism, black cultural identity, and the state at the center of their research. Hooker’s work is more concerned with political theory, minority rights, and debates around multiculturalism, whereas Ng’weno focuses on cultural identities, citizenship and the state in Colombia. The politics of racialized solidarity, its implications, effects, and consequences are the key themes of Hooker’s work. According to Hooker, the postmodern social insurrection (riots) in Paris of 2005 and the political-humanitarian disaster in New Orleans (Hurricane Katrina, 2006) call into question the Western liberal commitment to racial equality, multiculturalism, and immigrant integration. These two events, Paris and New Orleans, serve as grim and poignant illustrations of how racialized, poor, and marginal communities are dealt with by leading democracies. The events in Paris and New Orleans, while central to her discussion, are not however the main focus of her book. The key problem is the racialized contours of the politics of solidarity, i.e., how the social fact of race shapes the practice of solidarity and the challenges this poses for achieving racial justice. In Hooker’s view, the politics of solidarity refer to the reciprocal relations of trust and obligations established between members of a political community that is necessary for long-term egalitarian projects to flourish (p. 4). In other words, why do citizens of a democracy support and defend the rights of some people but not others? How is it possible for a group of citizens to firmly believe in constitutional rights on one hand, but deny the same rights to similar citizens, on the other? Her central claim is that theories of multiculturalism must address racialized solidarity. New Political Science, Volume 31, Number 3, September 2009

Afro-Atlantic World and Slavery - Afro-Latin America: Black Lives, 1600–2000. By George Reid Andrews . Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. 136.

westward expansion of the United States. Echenberg notes that while Humboldt did share information with Thomas Jefferson as a fellow scientist, his writings provided a more balanced image of Mexico for North Americans and Europeans than did many others. His travel writings have been used as an example of orientalism. Echenberg acknowledges that the German scientist viewed Mexico through an elite northern European lens, but he also argues for a deeper reading of Humboldt’s writings about New Spain, arguing that the German scientist highlighted the destruction wrought by colonialism and attacked the dominant economic and labor systems.

24.95 cloth.

responsibility for genocide, while accusing the Tutsi leader Paul Kagame of crimes against humanity (pp. 51–68). It would take at least a large book to launch a serious defense of any of these claims, and yet Herman and Peterson make all of them in a slim 159-page volume—while finding space to devote to Iraq, Darfur, Israel, East Timor, El Salvador, and Guatemala as well. To be blunt, nobody skeptical of any of these claims will be convinced by The Politics of Genocide. All in all, this book does not really try to examine the politics of genocide. It tries to provide ideological ammunition to people who already hate US foreign policy. There is surely much to hate about US foreign policy, but the book purports to be about more than that. Anyone who wants to do more than just chant, “So-and-so, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide” at American leaders deserves more from a book like this than example after example of bad things the US government has done. Whatever its merits as a source on the evils of US foreign policy, The Politics of Genocide never comes close to fulfilling the promise of its title.

The Black History of the White House

Brazil is a vast multicultural state and comprises one of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China). It is the world’s fifth most populous country and is largely recognized as a thriving democracy with a vast network of sophisticated and well-organized civil society groups. There continues to be a tremendous amount of public scholarship, in forms such as books, articles, conferences, seminars, and media, focused on Brazil relative to other countries in the region. With its economic potential and emerging role in regional and international affairs the focus on Brazil will continue for some time. The two new books reviewed in this essay reflect the new emerging scholarship on Brazil. They focus on race, racial discrimination, gender, Afro-Brazilian social movements, citizenship construction, media studies, affirmative action, nongovernmental organizations, and black politics. From heated debates on affirmative action to Afro-Brazilian social movements, Brazilian politics and civil society are experiencing rapid social change and the calculus of these transformations are carefully choreographed in Brazil’s New Racial Politics and Negras in Brazil. Brazil’s New Racial Politics brings together a series of essays written by anthropologists, political scientists, media and communication specialists, social justice activists, and others to discuss black political mobilization against racism and other forms of social injustice. The volume is divided into three easy-to-read parts: Black Empowerment and White Privilege; Affirmative Action Contested; and the New Politics of Black Power. The contributors include Brazilians, North Americans, and Europeans resulting in a unique blend of rich thematic essays. The main idea of Brazil’s New Racial Politics is to critically reassess Brazilian racial politics. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the authors argue that the struggles for social justice, equality, democracy, citizenship, better education, and human rights are rooted in moral imperatives; and that race and gender must be considered when addressing democratic systems. Part one, Black Empowerment and White Privilege, mainly examines how Afro-Brazilian identity has changed and how self-understanding depends on a person’s social standing. Bernd Reiter’s essay, “Whiteness as Capital,” carefully New Political Science, Volume 32, Number 2, June 2010