Governing Hate and Race in the United States and South Africa

Download or read book Governing Hate and Race in the United States and South Africa written by Patrick Lynn Rivers and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Patrick Lynn Rivers asserts that states govern racist hate by governing racial constructs. Rivers maintains that state practices used to govern hate and race in both the United States and South Africa do not make citizens safer, even as the United States markets itself as a melting pot of cultures and South Africa touts its status as the new multicultural city on a hill. In effect, the regulatory practices of the neoliberal state aid in the redirection of responsibility for the eradication of racist hate away from the nation and toward the hated, leaving unaddressed the systemic causes of hate. In line with emerging scholarship on hate, but also taking advantage of the perspective that comparative analysis makes possible, Rivers advocates a particular brand of progressive activism for a socially engaged state and citizenry where race is central and racism is not anomalous.