Asian Americans in an Anti-Black World

by Claire Jean Kim

Overview

Where do Asian Americans fit into the U.S. racial order? Are they subordinated comparably to Black people or permitted adjacency to whiteness? The racial reckoning prompted by the police murder of George Floyd and the surge in anti-Asian hate during the COVID-19 pandemic raise these questions with new urgency. Asian Americans in an Anti-Black World is a groundbreaking study that will shake up scholarly and popular thinking on these matters. Theoretically innovative and based on rigorous historical research, this provocative book tells us we must consider both anti-Blackness and white supremacy—and the articulation of the two forces—in order to understand U.S. racial dynamics. The construction of Asian Americans as not-white but above all not-Black has determined their positionality for nearly two centuries. How Asian Americans choose to respond to this status will help to define racial politics in the U.S. in the twenty-first century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009222259
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/29/2023
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	439,430
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 9.29(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Kim is Professor of Political Science and Asian American Studies at University of California, Irvine. Her writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and Ms. Magazine. Her two previous books, Bitter Fruit: The Politics of Black-Korean Conflict and Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species and Nature in a Multicultural Age, have both won best book awards from the American Political Science Association. Kim has been a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study and the University of California Humanities Research Institute.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Better Asians Than Blacks; Part I. Exclusion/Belonging; Part II. Ostracism/Initiation; Part III. Solidarity/Disavowal; Coda: Asian Americans and Anti-Blackness.

Editorial Reviews

‘Claire Kim's Asian Americans in an Anti-Black World is yet another critically important work from a leading theoretician of racial politics within the U.S. An acute observer of the complicated racial dynamics of the twenty-first century U.S., Kim centers anti-blackness as critical for understanding the complex racial dynamics that continue be central to shaping U.S. society and politics.’ Michael Dawson, The University of Chicago

‘Sure to elicit controversy and debate, Kim offers a stunning and provocative account of the racial positioning of Asian Americans in a pervasively anti-Black social order. In a work of enormous breadth, she challenges prevailing narratives and paradigms of Asian American history and politics by illustrating how Asian Americans have benefitted from anti-Blackness. Grasping the functionality of ‘better than Black’ for white supremacy becomes essential to imagining how anti-Asian racism might be framed and contested.’ Michael Omi, University of California, Berkeley

‘A razor-sharp retelling of Asian American history…The story of race and rights in the United States cannot be told without Asian Americans. This book will show you why.’ Jeff Guo, NPR Books We Love

From the Publisher