Racial Ambivalence in Diverse Communities - by Meghan A Burke (Paperback)

About the Book

This provocative ethnography reveals how pervasive color-blind ideology remains even among pro-diversity liberals active in shaping racially diverse communities, as well as its result: the unintentional re-creation of a white habitus in a racially diverse community. The book a...

Book Synopsis

This provocative ethnography reveals how pervasive color-blind ideology remains even among pro-diversity liberals active in shaping racially diverse communities, as well as its result: the unintentional re-creation of a white habitus in a racially diverse community. The book also explores the contours of white racial identity and the concrete links between racial discourse, ideology, and social action in the contemporary United States.

Review Quotes

Burke (Illinois Wesleyan Univ.) presents a qualitative analysis of the nature of racial ambivalence in three communities composed of whites, blacks, Latina/os, and Asians in Chicago. This research, based on in-depth interviews, explores the impact of color-blind ideologies, shows how thinking about race translates into a variety of community efforts, and illustrates the link between racial discourse and social action. Furthermore, it raises a number of critiques of coded racial discourse. The book's major focus revolves around the negotiations that take place between the ideals of diversity and color-blind society in communities where the majority white residents hold disproportionate decision-making power. Burke demonstrates through the participants' voices how the residents value or define diversity; how they deal with community issues related to social life, safety, development, and justice; and how whites negotiate their racial identities and unintentionally recreate a 'white habitus.' She recommends changes at the national and community levels in order to build, support, strengthen, and sustain communities based on diversity, racial equality, and social justice. A valuable addition to the growing literature on urban/community sociology and race and ethnic studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Racial Ambivalence in Diverse Communities uses rich interview data to offer a penetrating analysis of the complexities and contradictions involved in trying to maintain diverse urban neighborhoods. I strongly recommend this book to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of how white Americans wrestle with issues of diversity and race.

This is a much needed and timely examination of the link between racial ideology and social outcomes in racially diverse communities. Based on strong ethnographic research, Burke aptly demonstrates how the hazards of color-blind ideology and normative whiteness are present even as residents celebrate and embrace racial diversity. In doing so, she offers an important path toward real conversations about race and democracy.

With sensitivity and firmness, Meghan Burke documents the complexities and contradictions of white understandings of race in the contemporary United States. Drawn from a battery of richly contextualized interviews with residents of three diverse Chicago neighborhoods, Racial Ambivalence is at its most original in showing the tensions between colorblindness and ideals of diversity, and in exploring how these ostensibly liberal visions actually complicate the quest for equality and racial justice in America today.

About the Author

Meghan A. Burke is assistant professor of sociology at Illinois Wesleyan University.