Examines the progress of and obstacles faced by African Americans in twenty-first-century America.
In Repositioning Race, leading African American sociologists assess the current state of race theory, racial discrimination, and research on race in order to chart a path toward a more engaged public scholarship. They contemplate not only the paradoxes of Black freedom but also the paradoxes of equality and progress for the progeny of the civil rights generation in the wake of the election of the first African American US president. Despite the proliferation of ideas about a postracial society, the volume highlights the ways that racial discrimination persists in both the United States and the African Diaspora in the Global South, allowing for unprecedented African American progress in the midst of continuing African American marginalization.
Sandra L. Barnes is Professor of Sociology of Religion at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of many books, including The Cost of Being Poor: A Comparative Study of Life in Poor Urban Neighborhoods in Gary, Indiana, also published by SUNY Press, and Live Long and Prosper: How Black Megachurches Address HIV/AIDS and Poverty in the Age of Prosperity Theology. Zandria F. Robinson is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Memphis. Earl Wright II is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Cincinnati.