The Post-Racial Mystique: Media and Race in the Twenty-First Century

By Catherine R. Squires

Book Overview

Despite claims from
pundits and politicians that we now live in a post-racial America, people seem
to keep finding ways to talk about race--from celebrations of the inauguration
of the first Black president to resurgent debates about police
profiling, race and racism remain salient features of our world. When faced
with fervent anti-immigration sentiments, record incarceration rates of Blacks and
Latinos, and deepening socio-economic disparities, a new question has erupted
in the last decade: What does being post-racial mean?

The Post-Racial Mystique explores
how a variety of media--the news, network television, and online, independent media--debate,
define and deploy the term "post-racial" in their representations of American
politics and society. Using examples from both mainstream and niche media--from prime-time television series to specialty Christian media and audience
interactions on social media--Catherine Squires draws upon a variety of
disciplines including communication studies, sociology, political science, and
cultural studies in order to understand emergent strategies for framing
post-racial America. She reveals the ways in which media texts cast U.S.
history, re-imagine interpersonal relationships, employ statistics, and
inventively redeploy other identity categories in a quest to formulate
different ways of responding to race.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814770606
• ISBN13: 9780814770603
• Release Date: April 2014
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Length: 243 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.2"