The shifting meaning of race and class in the age of Trump

The profound concentration of economic power in the United States in recent decades has produced surprising new forms of racialization. In Producers, Parasites, Patriots, Daniel Martinez HoSang and Joseph E. Lowndes show that while racial subordination is an enduring feature of U.S. political history, it continually changes in response to shifting economic and political conditions, interests, and structures.

The authors document the changing politics of race and class in the age of Trump across a broad range of phenomena, showing how new forms of racialization work to alter the economic protections of whiteness while promoting some conservatives of color as models of the neoliberal regime. Through careful analyses of diverse political sites and conflicts-racially charged elections, attacks on public-sector unions, new forms of white precarity, the rise of black and brown political elites, militia uprisings, multiculturalism on the far right-they highlight new, interwoven deployments of race in the ascendant age of inequality. Using the concept of "racial transposition," the authors demonstrate how racial meanings and signification can be transferred from one group to another to shore up both neoliberalism and racial hierarchy.

From the militia movement to the Alt-Right to the mainstream Republican Party, Producers, Parasites, Patriots brings to light the changing role of race in right-wing politics.

About the Author

Daniel Martinez HoSang is associate professor at Yale University appointed in the American Studies and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration programs. He is author of Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California.

Joseph E. Lowndes is associate professor of political science at the University of Oregon. He is author of From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism.

Reviews

"In exploring the contemporary politics of whiteness, Daniel Martinez HoSang and Joseph E. Lowndes offer a powerful analysis of white precarity embedded in an antiracist critique of white supremacy in multicultural times. Producers, Parasites, Patriots is a necessary and welcome work."-Cristina Beltran, New York University

"In the age of neoliberal precarity, the authors argue, traditional protections of "whiteness" no longer prevent government workers from being depicted as parasites, and conservatives of color, along with languages of civil rights and multiculturalism, get resignified as models of conservative patriotism. This is a well-written and detailed examination of the ways racial identity gets transposed."-CHOICE

"It offers a clear and unique understanding of how the state of contemporary politics necessitates a re-thinking about the ideological barriers that we often assume polemically separate the political left and right."-Sociology of Health & Illness

"HoSang and Lowndes have opened-up space for dialogue around race and class in the present age. In doing so, they bring to light the limitations of liberal anti-racism."-New Political Science

"Daniel Martinez HoSang and Joseph E. Lowndes state in their fascinating new book Producers, Parasites, Patriots that only by providing a more critical understanding of contemporary right-wing politics can we be prepared to resist the growth of far-right movements."-Political Science Quarterly

"Producers, Parasites and Patriots offers compelling insight for a general public trying to make sense of the dynamic,complex, and at times contradictory behavior of the American political right."-Journal of African American Studies

Book Information
ISBN 9781517903596
Author Daniel Martinez HoSang
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint University of Minnesota Press
Publisher University of Minnesota Press
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 140mm * 25mm