Red Racisms

Reviews / Votes

'To date there has been no comprehensive account of racial order and the structural and experiential conditions of racism in communist and post-communit societies. Ian Law's Red Racisms offers a unique comparative and relational analysis of race and racism in the former Soviet Union and in the contemporary Russian Federation, in East European communist satellites and their post-communist aftermaths, and in Cuba. He demonstrates accordingly that though communist states were formally committed to excising racial discrimination, racial formation and racist experience remained constitutive features of modern state arrangement both in their communist and post-communist forms. The compelling account Law offers in Red Racisms fills a major gap in studies of race and racism. It will serve as an important source as much for those working on communist and post-communist states as it significantly advances our understanding of racial states and racisms.' - David Theo Goldberg, Director and Professor, University of California, Humanities Research Institute, USA

'Race and racism are truly worldwide phenomena. Ian Law shows how racism persisted under communism - in the USSR, China, Cuba, and elsewhere. These huge areas have largely avoided our antiracist gaze. No longer. Law turns our attention, not only toward the continuity of racial oppression under "actually existing communism," but also to the imperative of rethinking the false equation: communism = antiracism. Indeed racism is on the rise today in the "post-communist" countries. Caught between official denials of racism and the austerity and fear imposed by neoliberal regimes, blacks, Muslims, Roma, Jews, and others remain under assault. Existing democratic and inclusive rhetoric - for example appeals to "human rights" - does not avail them. Red Raciisms is indispensable in the effort to understand racism as a global system. Highly recommended, especially for the classroom.' - Howard Winant, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA and author of The World is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy Since WWII