American Antiblackness

American Antiblackness: Examining the Fields of Contemporary Racism details how, from its founding, antiblackness has been axiomatic for the United States. The goal of antiblackness is the delegitimization and dehumanization of actual blackness, from its oral and written resistance narratives to its outstanding works of literature and science, and from its hard-won political achievements to its strivings for greater freedom and social justice. This centuries-long process of delegitimization has racially segregated lives to a much larger extent than is generally acknowledged. This book provides a compelling window into how antiblackness is embedded, reproduced, and challenged in specific U.S. organizations and institutions—including educational systems, sports leagues, STEM fields, and healthcare institutions. It foregrounds how many generations of Black activists and scholars have aggressively countered these racially discriminatory traditions.

Through a notable mix of established and rising scholars across numerous disciplines, American Antiblackness unpacks how antiblackness has been analyzed in many areas of research. This book presents an intersectional approach to understanding common debates and threads in how these various fields have examined antiblackness, and it will be of critical importance to social justice activists and scholars across many disciplines, including African American studies, the social sciences, the physical sciences, the humanities, public policy programs, and art and literature studies.

Philip Ewell is a professor of music theory at Hunter College of the City University of New York. His specialties include race studies in music, African American Music, Russian music theory, and Russian opera. His work has been featured in news outlets such as the BBC, the CBC, The Conversation, Die Zeit, NPR, New York Times, New Yorker, and WQXR’s Aria Code. He is the founder and series editor for the Oxford University Press book series Theorizing African American Music and the founder and co-editor of the online open-access peer-reviewed journal Black Music, in Theory.

Joe R. Feagin is University Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) in Sociology at Texas A&M University. He has written or co-written 80 scholarly books and 230-plus scholarly articles in his social science areas. His books include Systemic Racism (Routledge, 2006) and Racist America. Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations (2025). He was the 1999–2000 president of the American Sociological Association.