A groundbreaking exploration of how race in America is being
redefined
The American racial order--the beliefs, institutions, and practices that
organize relationships among the nation's races and ethnicities--is
undergoing its greatest transformation since the 1960s. Creating a New
Racial Order takes a groundbreaking look at the reasons behind this
dramatic change, and considers how different groups of Americans are
being affected. Through revealing narrative and striking research, the
authors show that the personal and political choices of Americans will
be critical to how, and how much, racial hierarchy is redefined in
decades to come.
The authors outline the components that make up a racial order and
examine the specific mechanisms influencing group dynamics in the United
States: immigration, multiracialism, genomic science, and generational
change. Cumulatively, these mechanisms increase heterogeneity within
each racial or ethnic group, and decrease the distance separating groups
from each other. The authors show that individuals are moving across
group boundaries, that genomic science is challenging the whole concept
of race, and that economic variation within groups is increasing. Above
all, young adults understand and practice race differently from their
elders: their formative memories are 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and
Obama's election--not civil rights marches, riots, or the early stages
of immigration. Blockages could stymie or distort these changes,
however, so the authors point to essential policy and political choices.
Portraying a vision, not of a postracial America, but of a different
racial America, Creating a New Racial Order examines how the
structures of race and ethnicity are altering a nation.
