Quando as cotas raciais eram para os brancos

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[Amazon] When Affirmative Action Was White

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Rather than seeing affirmative action developing out of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Katznelson (Desolation and Enlightenment) finds its origins in the New Deal policies of the 1930s and 1940s. And instead of seeing it as a leg up for minorities, Katznelson argues that the prehistory of affirmative action was supported by Southern Democrats who were actually devoted to preserving a strict racial hierarchy, and that the resulting legislation was explicitly designed for the majority: its policies made certain, he argues, that whites received the full benefit of rising prosperity while blacks were deliberately left out. Katznelson supports this startling claim ingeniously, showing, for instance, that while the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act was a great boon for factory workers, it did nothing for maids and agricultural laborers—employment sectors dominated by blacks at the time—at the behest of Southern politicians. Similarly, Katznelson makes a strong case that the GI Bill, an ostensibly color-blind initiative, unfairly privileged white veterans by turning benefits administration over to local governments, thereby ensuring that Southern blacks would find it nearly impossible to participate. This intriguing study closes with suggestions for rectifying racial inequality, but its strongest merit is its subtle recalibration of a crucial piece of American history. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist

Katznelson places into contemporary context the cause of racial inequity that is directly related to government policies, which are widely believed to benefit blacks but which have actually benefited whites. He eschews the more generalist focus on slavery and white supremacy as the causes of racial inequality and focuses on government policies of the New Deal and post-World War II distribution of veteran benefits. He identifies in a practical sense government policies, most of which appear neutral on their face, that were designed to restrict blacks and, in fact, impeded them from progressing commensurate with white America. The war economy and labor needs expanded opportunities for blacks and substantially reduced economic disparities. But postwar policies to promote home ownership and labor laws regarding minimum wages deliberately excluded blacks. Other policies providing the engine that produced today's middle class, including the GI benefits that financed college education, reinforced the discriminatory patterns. By connecting the dots, Katznelson provides the foundational basis that justified affirmative action for blacks, as the disparities are an outgrowth of government policies and practices. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


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[WGBH Forum network] When Affirmative Action Was White

Ira Katznelson, professor, political science, history, Columbia

Ira Katznelson is Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University, where he received his BA in 1966 and first taught after completing his Ph.D. in History at Cambridge University in 1969. Before returning to Columbia in 1994, he was a member of the Departments of Political Science at the University of Chicago (where he was chair) and the New School for Social Research (where he was Dean of the Graduate Faculty). In 2003-4, he served as Acting Vice President and Dean of the Faculty for the Arts and Sciences at Columbia.

His most recent books are When Affirmative Action Was White (2005), and Desolation and Enlightenment: Political Knowledge after Total War, Totalitarianism, and the Holocaust (2003). Other books include Black Men, White Cities (1973), City Trenches (1981), Schooling for All (with Margaret Weir, 1985), Marxism and the City (1992), and Liberalism's Crooked Circle (1996). He has co-edited Working Class Formation (with Aristide Zolberg, 1986), Paths of Emancipation: Jews, States, and Citizenship (with Pierre Birnbaum, 1995), Shaped by War and Trade: International Influences on American Political Development (with Martin Shefter, 2002), Political Science: The State of the Discipline, Centennial Edition (with Helen Milner, 2002), and Preferences and Situations: Points of Intersection Between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalism (with Barry Weingast, 2005).

Professor Katznelson is President of the American Political Science Association for 2005-2006. Previously, he served as President of the Politics and History Section of APSA, President of the Social Science History Association, and Chair of the Russell Sage Foundation Board of Trustees. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

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When Affirmative Action Was White

Como podem favorecer brancos ao invés dos negros? Racismo!