How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America

By Karen Brodkin,

Book cover of How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America

Book description

The fashion identities in the context of a wider conversation about American nationhood, to whom it belongs and what belonging means. Race and ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality are all staple ingredients in this conversation. They are salient aspects of social being from which economic practices, political policies, and popular…

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Why read it?

1 author picked How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Now that I’ve raised the issue of whiteness – ways in which American structures and institutions reflect the agendas and interests of white people, and the role those structures play in shaping opportunity and life experiences -- here I want to bring it front and center. Many white people don’t recognize how they benefit from having white skin (called “white privilege”) and many white ethnic groups, including many white Jews in the U.S., deny their white privilege altogether, insisting that they too have been the victim of white discrimination, and that anti-Black racism is no different. Brodkin offers a powerful…

From Cheryl's list on Black-Jewish relations.

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