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| Subjects: Political Science, Sociology, African-American Studies |
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The more citizens trust their government, the better democracy functions. However, African Americans have long suffered from the lack of equal protection by their government, and the racial discrimination they have faced breaks down their trust in democracy. Rather than promoting democracy, the United States government has, from its inception, racially discriminated against African American citizens and other racial groups, denying them equal access to citizenship and to protection of the law. Civil rights violations by ordinary citizens have also tainted social relationships between racial groups—social relationships that should be meaningful for enhancing relations between citizens and the government at large. Thus, trust and democracy do not function in American politics the way they should, in part because trust is not color blind.
Based on the premise that racial discrimination breaks down trust in a democracy, Trust in Black America examines the effect of race on African Americans' lives. Shayla Nunnally analyzes public opinion data from two national surveys to provide an updated and contemporary analysis of African Americans' political socialization, and to explore how African Americans learn about race. She argues that the uncertainty, risk, and unfairness of institutionalized racial discrimination has led African Americans to have a fundamentally different understanding of American race relations, so much so that distrust has been the basis for which race relations have been understood by African Americans. Nunnally empirically demonstrates that race and racial discrimination have broken down trust in American democracy. |
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| | "This is an innovative and highly intellectual book best suited for graduate students, scholars, and those generally interested in the connections among race, politics, and psychology." | | -A.R.S. Lorenz, CHOICE |
| | "Shayla Nunnally
has written a groundbreaking study of the development of trust among Black
Americans. Trust in Black America is
empirically sound and theoretically sophisticated. It is a foundational study
that should be read by anyone interested in race and racial politics in the United States."
| | -Marion Orr, co-editor of Power in the City: Clarence Stone and the Politics of Inequality |
| | “Given the dramatic
racial and ethnic changes in American political life in the last generation,
Nunnally’s work substantially expands our understanding of the varied ways in
which people learn and experience politics. Trust in Black America
complicates Political Science’s definition of trust with an exploration of
African Americans’ internalization and externalization of race. This is a perfectly reasonable
conceptualization except that Nunnally is the first to have done so. Her subtle
and detailed framework of racial reasoning, moves the discussion of race beyond
Black and White, into the layered views African Americans hold toward Latinos
and Asians in the increasingly complex American population. This volume is a work of lasting
significance.” | | -Dianne Pinderhughes, author of Black Politics after the Civil Rights Revolution |
| | “Trust in Black America fills a long-overdue gap in the race and
politics literature. As a concept, political trust has been around a long time,
but it's seldom applied to race. But as the title suggests, Nunnally also
explores the broader contours of trust, including its social and contextual
variants, with stunning results. Given its focus upon trust writ large,
something I'd never seen in political science--until now, Trust in Black America is a must read for anyone who cares about
American politics.” | | -Christopher S. Parker, author of Fighting for Democracy |
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