Racial Thinking in the United States: Uncompleted Independence.

Racial Thinking in the United States: Uncompleted Independence. Edited by Paul Spickard and G. Reginald Daniel. African American Intellectual Heritage. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, c. 2004. Pp. x, 361. Paper, $20.00, ISBN 0-268-04104-0; cloth, $50.00, ISBN 0-268-04103-2.)

The editors of Racial Thinking in the United States: Uncompleted Independence, Paul Spickard and G. Reginald Daniel, plainly state the ambitious objective of this anthology: to "investigate the creation of racial ideas and systems in the United States in the context of slavery and colonialism and the subsequent revisions of those ideas and systems in later eras" (p. 2). The editors divide the twelve essays, which are by authors from the disciplines of history, sociology, American studies, Chicana and Chicano studies, African American studies, and Asian American studies, into four categories: "Creating Racial Hierarchy in Slavery and Colonialism," "Anomalies in the Racial Binary," "Monoracial Challenges to Racial Hierarchy," and "Multiracial Challenges to the Racial Binary."

The first section of the book considers the origins of the American racial binary. First, G. Reginald Daniel traces the roots and development of the idea of race and, in particular, the early belief that race had a basis in biology. Next, Stephen A. Small examines the contention that blacks of mixed racial origins in Jamaica received some advantage or privilege during the era of slavery. Small argues that any such advantage has been greatly exaggerated; the majority of Jamaicans of mixed racial origins lived in very harsh circumstances with little assistance from their white relatives.

The next section, which discusses individuals whose very existence appears to dispute the racial binary, begins with Hanna Wallinger's essay about Alice Dunbar-Nelson and her private descriptions of passing. Wallinger argues that Dunbar-Nelson sometimes passed for white in "areas in which segregation went hand in hand with severe personal inconvenience," such as in transportation, restaurants, and public performance halls, but that she "never seriously considered her place in the African American community" (p. 87). Moreover, according to Wallinger, Dunbar-Nelson felt no guilt about these temporary acts of passing. Paul Spickard follows with an essay that provocatively considers why some prominent individuals of mixed race, specifically W. E. B. Du Bois, Jean Toomer, Walter White, and Frederick Douglass, chose to pass for black. In the final essay in this section, Lori Pierce posits that in Hawaii, whites appropriated the discourse of aloha to embrace racial and ethnic diversity without threatening white hegemony.

The third section focuses on the efforts of individual racial groups to contest the racial hierarchy and includes an evaluation of the shortcomings of the African American and Chicana/Chicano civil rights movements. Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval finds that the limitations of the movements were their lack of attention to issues of gender, sexuality, and, to a lesser degree, class. William Wei explores the Asian American struggle for equality in the United States in hopes of expanding the racial paradigm beyond black and white to include other groups. In an essay that seems better suited to the last section of essays, G. Reginald Daniel considers Afrocentrism and finds that multiracial identity does not conflict with Afrocentric ideals. The final essay in this section is Paul Spickard's thorough and thoughtful critique of whiteness studies.

The final section contemplates the growth of multiracial identity in the United States. In separate essays, G. Reginald Daniel and Michael C. Thornton examine the push for including a multiracial category on the census and on other official government documents. Thornton, unlike Daniel, argues that the proponents of such inclusion do not realize the potentially negative ramifications of a multiracial category. Moreover, Thornton asks the important questions: "What brings most multiracial people together such that they fit better together than in some other category? What is the core of their identification?" (p. 322). Finally, Zipporah G. Glass argues that black theology must recognize and embrace the multiple identities of black people, their "mestizaje," in order to continue to be effective in pushing for political change (p. 345).

Given the varied disciplinary backgrounds of the authors, the style and content of the essays lack consistency. That is, some of the essays are more descriptive, others are more heavily theoretical, some synthesize or offer a broad overview of other works, and some posit new arguments based on original research. The collection is particularly well suited for classroom use in an upper-level or graduate course because of the variety of approaches and styles. The essays tend to focus on the twentieth century, especially the second half of the twentieth century, despite the editors' intention to include "the context of slavery and colonialism" (p. 2). Instead, the authors in this anthology offer analysis and critique of more recent changes in thinking about race and racial hierarchy.

FAY YARBROUGH

University of Kentucky