Doing Race: 21 Essays for the 21^st Century and Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities are two important additions to the study of race in the United States. First, both provide insight into the continuous significance of race in a time when racial tensions are on the rise despite the ubiquitous suggestion that we are in a post-racial society. Secondly, both works serve as important indicators of the multiplicative nature of race, each covering many of the bases so critical to race study. As many academicians and students of race and ethnicity recognize, race is a phenomenon that must be approached from multiple angles (e.g., anthropologically, sociologically, historically, and so on) if we are to fully understand how race operates. Thirdly, these two works offer an array of possible solutions or models for addressing some of the problems that beset racial and ethnic conflicts. Finally, while each of the books tackles the issue of race, they complement each other as Doing Race provides a more general, comprehensive understanding of racial and ethnic issues across the United States while Black Los Angeles represents a specific case study of race relations in one urban setting. All in all, these works make important contributions to the literature about the significance of race in America.

Doing Race: 21 Essays for the 21^st Century has an impressive set of twenty-one essays on the ever-persistent debate on the concept of race and its understanding within the context of our American society. Recognizing the multiplicative nature of this topic, the editors, Hazel Rose Markus and Paula M. L. Moya, have assembled an extraordinary set of essays by many known authors from across the disciplines (i.e., sociology, psychology, literature, history, anthropology), in order to demonstrate how “doing race” is prominent in all aspects of social life. As the editors intended, the book is an important learning tool for generating conversations on how race remains such a vital aspect of our lives, without intimidating the reader. It is a very accessible text; one that brings focus to the significance of race in America.

Markus and Moya set the stage for the examination of race with an introductory chapter which delineates their perspective on the construction of race, better known as “doing race.” It is here that they examine “what race and ethnicity are, how they work, and why achieving a just society requires us to take account of them” (p. v). In this chapter they link the notion of doing race to the process and practices that emerge in everyday life individually and institutionally. In their eyes, race is not simply a designation for a group based on some physical attribute, but entails

• • Sorts people into ethnic groups according to perceived physical and behavioral human characteristics that are often imagined to be negative, innate, and shared.

• • Associates differential value, power, and privilege with these characteristics, establishes a hierarchy among the different groups; and confers opportunity accordingly.

• • Emerges when groups are perceived to pose a threat (political, economic, or cultural) to each other's worldview or way of life; and/or to justify the denigration and exploitation (past, current, or future) of other groups while exalting one's own group to claim an innate privilege (p. 21).

Based on this conception, they then provide the reader with a foundational understanding of the origins of race and ethnicity within America—debating biological and cultural arguments as well as enumerating America's contradictory demand for equality and individualism, despite the fact that social factors are imposed on behavior. They also identify the types of conversations that either ignore, dismiss, or invoke identity politics or notions of color blindness to the race/ethnicity question. Additionally, they provide some very cogent examples of doing race (in housing, employment, sports, education, medicine, justice, media) and unlike some other works, they offer ways of handling or “changing the conversations” about race.

Their perspective is followed by sections designed to illuminate the character and nature of doing race. Included are readings on how race and ethnicity are invented; how these inventions have constructed racial differences and perceived racial groups; how these race differences are embedded in institutional practices; how these impact minorities; and how the doing of race is being challenged by authors to “re-present” the reality of race.

The first section, “Inventing Race and Ethnicity,” consists of a series of articles focused on historical and theoretical representations of (1) how race and ethnicity were constructed via U.S. governmental institutions and policies (C. Matthew Snipp); (2) what past models have been utilized by historians and social scientists to explain race and ethnic relations (G. Fredrickson); as well as (3) works which show how past genetic/biological conceptions on race difference (M. Feldman) have had limited applications to the categorizing of race and ethnicity; and (4) the new research in the domain of biomedicine (B. Koenig) which has inadvertently reinvigorated the discussion on the biological basis for racial and ethnic categorization, ostensibly fueling the belief that race is biologically determined, even though social and environmental effects are significant in impacting health outcomes.

The second section, “Racing Difference,” focuses on how Western European Christian thought, false constructions of the Arab world and the Middle East and western preoccupation with defining Asian as “forever foreigners” has constructed difference and negatively impacted the experiences of Jews (A. Rodrigue), the Islamic-Arab community (J. Beinin), and the Asian American community (G. Chang) respectively. Also, Norman Naimark's piece on ethnic cleansing and genocide not only brings clarity to these terms but provides taxonomy of ethnic cleansing from which to evaluate racial-ethnic conflict in the international realm.

The third section of the text provides essays that examine institutional contributions to race differencing. Shanto Iyengar identifies how news programming activities (e.g., focusing on violence among racial minorities) have fueled stereotypes and misrepresentations of racial minority groups. Drawing on his experiences of living in Compton, California, Albert M. Camillo recounts how discriminatory racial segregation activities by real estate agents, along with the racial politics of the times, created ethnic tension between African Americans and Latinos in the community. However, he identifies how grassroots organizing and collaboration between Blacks and Latinos in more recent years has made it possible to eliminate the dynamics of racial conflict. Linda Darling-Hammond examines how racial inequality in our schools (as a result of underfunding, poor curriculum, poor teacher salaries, and poorly trained teachers) has led to failure in addressing the needs of students of color. She offers some solutions that require resource equalization especially in the hiring of high-quality teachers, and in curriculum and assessment reform. Finally, using data from a national survey on race, crime and public opinion, Lawrence Bobo and Victor Thompson reveal how the United States has “racialized mass incarceration” of minorities, particularly African Americans. They effectively argue and demonstrate that the legal system and public policy are informed by anti-Black attitudes, which in turn has led to massive incarceration of African Americans.

In the fourth part of this text, five essays touch upon “how race and ethnicity shape how we see, how we act, and who we are” (p. xii). Here Hazel Rose Markus describes how people come to identify by race and ethnicity and what impact this has on their perceptions of themselves. Moreover, she details how race and ethnicity motivate our behavior and have the effect of telling us “where we belong” among racial and ethnic groupings in society (p. 384). The ultimate conclusion one might draw from this work is that race and ethnicity play a significant role in our social identities while having major implications for the construction of racial and ethnic relations in our society. Claude Steele shows ways in which stereotypes of Blacks as academic inferiors can negatively impact minority students' performance in the classroom. In an extension of her earlier work on White racial identity, Monica McDermott reveals how White identity can be experienced in at least three ways: as a privilege to defend, as a perceived stigma, or as an identity that can be transcended. She also enumerates four factors that are important in how Whiteness will be experienced. Jennifer Eberhardt, drawing on a series of studies, reminds us that images of Blacks are often associated with criminal behavior and animals, and that those images have had tremendous impact on minorities' perceptions of, attention to, and judgment of themselves as individuals (often in the negative) in our everyday social interactions. Finally, Stephanie Fryberg and Alisha Watts remind us of how social representations, like American Indian mascots, can negatively impact the identity of those whom the stereotypical images represent.

The final section of the book, called “Re-presenting reality,” provides four essays which challenge us to think beyond the historical and social science representations of race and ethnicity by focusing on how literature, music, comedic writing, and theatrical performance can reinterpret racial conventions and mindsets so as to effectively change ways of thinking about race and “keeping it real.” For example, Paula Moya uses a short story by a Mexican Americanwriter, Elena Maria Viramontes, to show how literature can challenge social and cultural ideas about society and inequality. Marcyliena Morgan and Dawn-Elissa Fischer reveal how hip-hop as an art form has been “critical of and confrontational of mainstream American practices of exclusion, indifference, and supremacy toward the black community” and how “language and language ideology are used in Hip Hop to represent racism and injustice” (p. 509). Michele Elam provides an intricate analysis of the comic strip the Boondocks to show how art can be used to successfully challenge the perception that race is no longer a problem in America and that the “mixed race” category is a panacea for the end of racial politics as we know it. Finally, in “We Wear the Mask: Performance, Social Drama and Race,” Harry Elam examines how performance in various genres (the play, film, hip-hop music, and the O. J. Simpson trial) infuses our knowledge about how race gets played out in our everyday “performances” or behavior.

Overall, Doing Race provides us with a distinctive account of the concept of race in all its formulations. Anyone looking for a group of essays that touch upon the multiplicative nature of race would find this piece a welcome addition to the literature. Readers who are interested in issues of race and ethnicity will not be disappointed, especially as the book is set in the context of contemporary America. For the novice, it provides an excellent opportunity to learn about the many aspects of race in the United States. Most of the articles are pitched at such a level that anyone can enjoy the insightful content about race and its various conceptions and misconceptions. The student of race will find the work affirming as well as informative, especially in those areas with which he or she is less familiar. Finally, because of the multifaceted nature of race, the book affirms that race must be approached in this kind of interdisciplinary fashion. No longer can we be merely beholden to one approach toward the topic of race. Ultimately, Markus and Moya have constructed a real testament to W. E. B. Du Bois's insightful proclamation that the problem of the twentieth century remains the problem of the twenty-first century.

Although there is much to praise in this text, I found myself wanting some concluding remarks or an afterword about how each of these works filter back to the forward, preface, and introduction to Doing Race. Also, for those who demand a more hard-hitting emphasis on racism or a more disciplined, specific approach, the kinder, gentler focus of the book may not go far enough in pushing the envelope on the degree to which racism is an integral part of our daily lives. It does attest to the fact that race, in all its dimensions, is seriously central to our discourses and institutions.

Despite these minor shortcomings, this book is an important demonstration of how the notion of a “post-racial” society is a myth. It is timely because it effectively and eloquently dismantles many of the arguments stating that we have moved into a post-racial society. And given all of the recent political posturing and racial commentary about “illegal immigration,” “Islamic terrorism,” etc., this book is a needed addition to a reasonable discussion on race.

Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities consists of seventeen essays focusing on the past and current development of the African American community in Los Angeles. Using data and research generated from the Ralph Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, Darnell Hunt (Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center) and Ana-Christina Ramon (Assistant Director) have put together an interesting series of writings that provide an in-depth look at the “historical and contemporary contours of Black life in Los Angeles” (p. 2). The intent, according to Hunt, is to provide a “historically grounded, multidisciplinary exploration into the ups and downs of black life in a huge American metropolis. It is an attempt to connect the dots between the past, present, and future of a space that was seeded centuries ago with a profound black presence, that has attracted hundreds of thousands of black migrants in the intervening years, but that, oddly enough, is only marginally understood as a black space” (pp. 2–3). Toward this end, Hunt and Ramon have brought together a set of essays that address five core areas of interest regarding the black community in Los Angeles: “communities and neighborhoods; religious life; political participation; cultural production and social justice” (pp. 3–4). The book is organized into four sections (“Space,” “People,” “Image,” and “Action”) in which a series of case studies and/or historical vignettes are presented. Three of these examine the evolution of Black communities in LA; four utilize stories from people in the community “who faced challenges in the city”; five examine media representation and self-representations about Black Los Angeles; and finally, four more consider ways in which Black communities have intervened to address reoccurring problems in Black communities.

In chapter one, Hunt introduces us to the fact that the “American dream” for many African Americans has been clouded by the realities of racial segregation and oppression which has often led to a “dream deferred.” Black Los Angeles offers examples of how such reality gets realized in most American cities. According to Hunt, Black Los Angeles is full of contradictions about racial realities that can be identified through the histories of Black communities; like Baldwin Hills, which experienced considerable prestige, but was subject to the kinds of racial restrictions associated with residential segregation. While prosperity was often prominent in such communities, over time harsh social and economic conditions superseded Black Los Angeles' development and efforts to make change. In the final analysis, this books strives to shed light on the character and condition of Black Los Angeles by considering the following four important questions:

1. 1. What is the nature of the “Black” in the space we refer to as “Black Los Angeles?”

2. 2. How can the history of a place be employed to make sense of the racial present?

3. 3. What lessons can be learned that might help make Black dreams of a brighter future a reality in the region and beyond?

4. 4. What can the case of “Black Los Angeles” teach us about race in America? (p. 15)

Has the book provided answers to these questions? Regarding the topic of history, the first three chapters provide an important historical foundation for the initial emergence of African Americans in the area. In chapter one, Paul Robinson not only describes the African American experience but does so within the confines of racism and segregation. Reginald Chapple adds a descriptive piece on the historical development of Black entrepreneurship as it is affected by racism and the expansion of the community. Through the eyes of long-time residents and historical investigation, Andrew Deener provides, in chapter three, a close look at the rise and fall of the Black Oakwood community in Venice, documenting how an area that was a “black section” reeking with “the projects,” poverty, and gang violence in the 1970s and 1980s eventually became a bastion of upward mobility in the 1990s and 2000s, through gentrification by Whites and increased policing, security, and entrepreneurship efforts in the area.

In section two of the text (“People”), Hunt and Ramon include four more chapters that relate to the conditions of Blacks in Los Angeles. Through ethnography, Jooyoung Lee reports on how hip-hop positively shaped the lives of Black men in South Central and how one initiative, called Project Blowed, proved to be a successful mentoring tool for up and coming rappers. Alex Alonso explores the historical development of street gangs in LA and how race, segregation, and discrimination in the community have come to “spawn” many of these gangs. One of the more impressive ethnographies comes from the work of M. Belinda Tucker et al., entitled “Imprisoning the Family.” A commonplace phenomenon in Black communities, Tucker and her co-authors look at the impact of the rising tide of arrests and incarceration on the families in the LA area. Using interviews with close relatives and partners of inmates, they give an important insight into the perceptions that Blacks have of the criminal justice system and the “costs” it has for these families and the inmates. Finally, Mignon Moore draws on ethnographic data of Black lesbians and gays in Los Angeles to explore their relationship to the community, especially the religious community. The chapter provides a good description of the dilemmas Black gay and lesbian individuals are facing (coming out, conflicts over their sexuality) in the Black community.

In part three of the text (“Image”), there are five articles that tap into images or perceptions of Black Los Angeles. In chapter eight, Dionne Bennett reviews how the media has portrayed Watts and the South Central areas of Los Angeles as revered examples of life in the “hood”; one that is authentic, steeped in danger, yet to be glorified for its violence and musical artistry. As the author notes, these images unfortunately fail to provide real understanding of the diversity of Black Los Angeles. As an extension of the media, the film industry's preoccupation with portraying Black Los Angeles and Black America through the streets of South Central has typecast many black actors and professionals into “ghetto” roles, according to Nancy Wang Yuen. Her interviews with a number of Black actors revealed that they were often struggling to find roles that were not the stereotypical roles in the “hood.” This is, in part, attributed to the industry's dominance by White screenwriters who insist on this being the “authentic Black experience.” Also, because of segregation and exclusion in the industry, Black writers and actors often have had little input in the production of the images of Blacks that are portrayed on film. Although Black actors have challenged these roles and the segregation in the industry, Yuen notes that the twenty-first century has seen a continuation of the one-dimensional roles of Blacks as defined by Whites.

In a move away from media representations, Paul Blum in chapter ten reviews the Black arts movement in Los Angeles with specific focus on that which emerged out of the 1965 Watts Riots. He discusses how artists and art organizers were able to present venues for the production of Black art as well as provide the public with artistic portrayals that reflected on the social issues impacting the Black community—“race, civil rights, homelessness, police brutality, drugs, gender discrimination, and AIDS” (p. 244). Another historical piece on the development of Black art in Los Angeles is Scot Brown's article on the history of Black record production in Los Angeles in chapter eleven. Brown shows how one particular company—SOLAR Records—made significant contributions to the Black music industry throughout the 1990s even when other Black-owned records were in decline. What was important about SOLAR's success was not only its ability to foster a creative Black music sound but that it showed how Black economic empowerment could flourish even when there were many racial obstacles to its existence. Finally, Hunt and Ramon's piece on “Killing ‘Killer King’” recounts the rise and fall of the Watts area medical project known as the King/Drew Medical Center (Martin Luther King Jr./Charles Drew Medical Center) in the Black community. Viewed with much anticipation in the 1950s and 1960s, the King/Drew Medical center was seen as a major investment in (and triumph for) the Black community by the city of Los Angeles. However, since its construction, local print media portrayals of hospital staff incompetency, neglect, and administrative fraud in the 1990s, in addition to financial cuts in county funding support, saw the precipitous downfall of the medical center. “Killer King” hospital, as it was nicknamed because of its supposed reputation for “killing” its patients by neglect, essentially became the object of a self-fulfilling prophecy as certain political and economic woes, along with White media cries of incompetence, led to its demise. Institutionalized racism, in other words, crippled the success of an important Black facility in LA.

Part four of the text (“Action”) presents a series of articles that convey accounts of events and strategies that were used to address incidents of discrimination in the Los Angeles Black community. Melina Abdullah and Regina Freer show how instances of activist leadership by two Black, female community organizers in the LA area—Charlotta Bass of the 1950s and 1960s and Karen Bass (no relation), organizer of the Community Coalition in the 1990s and a California State Assembly person in 2004—can be seen as models for effective change in the Black community. Through their persistent efforts to fight political and institutional racism, the authors propose that these Black Angelinos demonstrated how one can be an effective leader in making changes for minority communities. Sonya Winton's article speaks to an instance of environmental racism in 1985. When two African American women from the City of Los Angeles learned that an incinerator plant was destined to be constructed in the middle of the Black community, they were able to mobilize forces to form the Concerned Citizens of South Central (CCOSC) which worked successfully to force the development of the facility elsewhere. This article reveals not only how minority communities are often targets of environmentally-harmful industries in certain racially and economically defined areas—low income Black areas, for instance—but also the need for more community organizing (like CCOSC) and leadership (like Bass and Bass) to protect these communities from environmental racism. Most importantly, this article provides another model of community activism centered on leadership that, when faced with “insurmountable odds, strategically aggregated its organic base and institutionalized a triangular organizational model (e.g., community education, science-based advocacy, and media outreach) in order to challenge the status of area residents as marginalized and politically powerless” (p. 354).

Edna Bonacich et al. contribute to the examples of community action by examining the relationship between Black Los Angeles and the labor movement, invoking the case of SOULA, the Security Officers United in Los Angeles, Local 2006. This union had fought the Los Angeles commercial building owners for hiring workers—most of whom were Black private security workers—at very low wages and with poor healthcare. Through union member demonstrations, letter writing campaigns, and sit-ins, the city partnered with the union to encourage unionization of these workers so that they might receive a fair wage. The city also developed public policy that would establish certain labor standards in the workplace and labor market that would, at minimum, cause employers to maintain sufficient wage, health, and safety standards for workers. The chapter demonstrates not only the success of the SOULA campaign in transforming and improving the quality of jobs for Blacks through unionization of the workers, but also what can be learned about addressing the needs of Black workers in general in other cities.

Finally, Ramon and Hunt review how community leaders and the local NAACP came together and formed the Alliance for Equal Opportunity Education (AEOE), an organization critically formed to address the faltering admissions of Blacks at UCLA and the academic needs of the Black community in the early 2000s. With the advent of California's anti-affirmative action legislation, the numbers of Blacks admitted to UC schools, and particularly UCLA, plummeted. In light of this “crisis,” the AEOE with UCLA alumni and other community leaders was able to get UCLA to find ways to improve admissions of African Americans. Ultimately, the lesson to be learned from this is a mode of community mobilization that could be used in other communities.

Overall, Black Los Angeles provides a telling tale about the need to examine the racial processes that impact Black urban communities. However, like Doing Race, I would like to have seen a more reflective final chapter about how Los Angeles can teach us a bit more about race in America. Although the chapters provide insight into some of those issues, a review of those specific revelations would give further basis from which to examine racial issues in other Black metropolitan areas.

As outlined in this review, Black Los Angeles and Doing Race provide the reader with an intriguing and exciting look into realm of race relations today. Read together, these works provide useful insight into the complexities of race in contemporary U.S. society; independently, they provide important clarity to phenomena that are clearly of major and continuing importance in the twenty-first century.