Tim Wise

This book explores the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America, chronicling them from the Civil War to the present. Author Carol Anderson reframes our conversation about race and exposes the deliberate and relentless rollback of African Americans' gains every time they make advances towards full participation in our democracy. This book is an unimpeachable history of the long lineage of white rage, adding an important new dimension to the national conversation about race in America.

A scathing indictment of white male America's deliberate efforts to subvert women, people of color, and the disenfranchised, this ambitious survey of American history explores the backstory of America's growth, from immigrant migration to sociopolitical movements that reinforce male power. Through interviews, research, and powerful personal writing, the author reveals how white men have long maintained a stranglehold on leadership, at the cost of everyone else's pursuit of happiness.

In this book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people--including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others--she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.

This modern classic memoir delves into the author's experiences as a white lesbian activist in the 1980s, fighting against North Carolina's far-right movement. With a backdrop of nine generations of her family's history, Memoir of a Race Traitor became a celebrated text of white anti-racist practice. Now, with a new introduction and afterword, the book explores the current national crisis driven by white supremacy and offers hope for a better future. An inspiring and politically potent read that transcends genre.