Metaracism: How Systemic Racism Devastates Black Lives—and How We Break Free

Sociologist Rose (The Hip Hop Wars) demonstrates in this astute critique how the mainstream idea of racism as rooted in individual bias masks a complex system of oppression. Highlighting the dynamic interplay between laws and informal practices that together lead people to get “caught up in the system,” Rose traces interconnected anti-Black policies in housing, schools, banking, criminal justice, and media. She identifies the “metaeffects” of these policies as a trio of functions—containment (via segregation and redlining), extraction (the removal of wealth and assets, including the government seizure of over 16 million acres of Black-owned farmland since 1920), and punishment (such as when minor infractions are enforced against Black people that are not enforced against white people). Examining three highly publicized cases of contemporary racism—the slayings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and the jailing of Kelley Williams-Bolar for lying about her address so her children could attend a better school—that were largely presented in the press as grounded in the racist behaviors of individual malefactors, Rose tracks the broad policies (such as generations of discriminatory housing and lending) which served as backstories to these events. Marshalling extensive evidence into a lucid and powerful narrative, Rose provides an essential new look at American inequality. Even readers well versed in the topic will have their eyes opened by this cogent analysis. (Mar.)