Anti-Racism as Communism

Paul Gomberg retired as Professor of Philosophy at Chicago State University, where he taught for twenty-nine years. He is currently Research Associate in the Philosophy department at the University of California at Davis. He is the author of How to Make Opportunity Equal: Race and Contributive Justice (2007) and has participated in fifty years of anti-racist activism.

• A PERSONAL INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1: THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF RACE IN ENGLISH NORTH AMERICA CHAPTER 2: RACE IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR CHAPTER 3: BLACK WORKERS IN SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE: FROM RECONSTRUCTION TO WW2CHAPTER 4: RACE AND ANTI-RACISM IN INDUSTRY: COAL MINERS 1870-1921 CHAPTER 5: RACE AND ANTI-RACISM IN INDUSTRY: THE COMMUNIST PARTY FIGHTS RACISMCHAPTER 6: THE CREATION OF TODAY’S RACISMCHAPTER 7: IS RACISM INTERRACIAL? CHAPTER 8: ALIENATING RACE AND FIGHTING RACISM CHAPTER 9: RACE-CENTERED MARXISMCHAPTER 10: A SOCIETY WITHOUT RACECHAPTER 11: REASONABLE HOPE? ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSREFERENCES

Anti-Racism as Communism contains a wide range of interesting and provocative claims and helps break new ground in existing philosophical discussions of social justice, racism and capitalism. In particular, both of the central lessons Gomberg discusses in the book help to push back against the fairly widespread view that communism and socialism are economistic creeds, or perhaps even hopelessly ‘class reductionist’ in outlook, and thus have very little of value to say about race. For this reason, the book deserves a wide readership on the political left, not just among card-carrying communists.