4.0
Faces at the Bottom of the Well
ByPublisher Description
The groundbreaking work on American racism and the struggle for racial justice
“Eerily prophetic, almost haunting, and yet at the same time oddly reassuring.” —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
In Faces at the Bottom of the Well, civil rights activist and legal scholar Derrick Bell uses allegory and historical example—including the classic story "The Space Traders"—to argue that racism is an integral and permanent part of American society. African American struggles for equality are doomed to fail, he writes, so long as the majority of whites do not see their own well-being threatened by the status quo. Bell calls on African Americans to face up to this unhappy truth and abandon a misplaced faith in inevitable progress. Only then will blacks, and those whites who join with them, be in a position to create viable strategies to alleviate the burdens of racism.
This classic book was a pioneering contribution to critical race theory scholarship, and it remains urgent and essential reading on the problem of racism in America.
“Eerily prophetic, almost haunting, and yet at the same time oddly reassuring.” —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
In Faces at the Bottom of the Well, civil rights activist and legal scholar Derrick Bell uses allegory and historical example—including the classic story "The Space Traders"—to argue that racism is an integral and permanent part of American society. African American struggles for equality are doomed to fail, he writes, so long as the majority of whites do not see their own well-being threatened by the status quo. Bell calls on African Americans to face up to this unhappy truth and abandon a misplaced faith in inevitable progress. Only then will blacks, and those whites who join with them, be in a position to create viable strategies to alleviate the burdens of racism.
This classic book was a pioneering contribution to critical race theory scholarship, and it remains urgent and essential reading on the problem of racism in America.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesFaces at the Bottom of the Well Reviews
4.0
Jason Stephens
Created 3 months agoShare
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“Only read chapter 9, Space Traders, for one of my English courses. If you enjoy satirical science fiction based on racial issues, read this short story. The satire isn’t funny, but rather sad. Afrofuturism at its finest.”Brittney.
Created 4 months agoShare
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The_Katter
Created 11 months agoShare
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Olivia
Created about 1 year agoShare
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NORMA WRIGHT
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About Derrick Bell
Derrick Bell (1930-2011) was a civil rights attorney, pioneering legal scholar, professor, and political activist. A full-time visiting professor at New York University Law School for over two decades, he was previously the first tenured African American professor on the faculty of Harvard Law School and the first African American dean of the University of Oregon School of Law. He is also the author of And We Are Not Saved and several other books.
Other books by Derrick Bell
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