









Please take a look at recently published books related to the field of working-class studies. Full descriptions for each are available here.
Karen Gaffney, Professor of English at Raritan Valley Community College and author of the blog, Divided No Longer, has published Dismantling the Racism Machine:A Manual and Toolbox.
Here’s a description of the book from Routledge Press:
“While scholars have been developing valuable research on race and racism for decades, this work does not often reach the beginning college student or the general public, who rarely learn a basic history of race and racism. If we are to dismantle systemic racism and create a more just society, people need a place to begin. This accessible, introductory, and interdisciplinary guide can be one such place. Grounded in critical race theory, this book uses the metaphor of the Racism Machine to highlight that race is a social construct and that racism is a system of oppression based on invented racial categories. It debunks the false ideology that race is biological. As a manual, this book presents clear instructions for understanding the history of race, including whiteness, starting in colonial America, where the elite created a hierarchy of racial categories to maintain their power through a divide-and-conquer strategy. As a toolbox, this book provides a variety of specific action steps that readers can take once they have developed a foundational understanding of the history of white supremacy, a history that includes how the Racism Machine has been recalibrated to perpetuate racism in a supposedly “post-racial” era.”
Karen Gaffney recently spoke on a panel alongside Tim Wise, Prof. Denise Francois-Seeney, and Prof. Kamau Kenyatta about anti-racism at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, PA. Prof. Jim Von Schilling moderated the panel. It was a great discussion attended by an audience of at least 150 people about the persistence of systemic racism, strategies for ending white supremacy, how everyone can take action, and the inspiring work of Black Lives Matter activists.