Its not just a challenge to racists, its a challenge to people like me, its a challenge to African-Americans who have accepted the fact of race and define themselves by the concept of race. Ta-Nehisi Coates
Fundamentally challenged some of my oldest and laziest ideas about race. Zadie Smith
These essays are extraordinary. I love the forceful elegance with which they hammer home that race is a monstrous fiction, racism is a monstrous crime. Junot Dķaz
Demanding and intelligent. Jennifer Vega, PopMatters
Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields have undertaken a great untangling of how the chimerical concepts of race are pervasively and continuously reinvented and reemployed in this country. Maria Bustillos, Los Angeles Review of Books
The neologism racecraft is modelled on witchcraft It isnt that the Fieldses regard the commitment to race as a category as an irrational superstition. On the contrary, they are interested precisely in exploring its rationalitythe role that beliefs about race play in structuring American societywhile at the same time reminding us that those beliefs may be rational but theyre not true. Walter Benn Michaels, London Review of Books
A most impressive work, tackling a demanding and important topicthe myth that we now live in a postracial societyin a novel, urgent, and compelling way. The authors dispel this myth by squarely addressing the paradox that racism is scientifically discredited but, like witchcraft before it, retains a social rationale in societies that remain highly unequal and averse to sufficiently critical engagement with their own history and traditions. Robin Blackburn
[ Racecraft] should be more widely read than it isno matter its current reach. In it, the authors achieve an intelligence and agility that is rare in discussions of identity, racism, and inequality. Matthew McKnight, Nation
Liberal mores against overt racism are crumbling in the face of Trump. We must build them better The Fields sisters dive through sociology, history, and science to reach the material truth: races is a product of racism, not the other way around. Charlie Heller, Paste
With examples ranging from the profound to the absurdincluding, for instance, an imaginary interview with W.E.B. Dubois and Emile Durkheim, as well as personal porch chats with the authors grandmotherthe Fields delve into racecrafts profound effect on American political, social and economic life. Global Journal
This is a very thoughtful book, a very urgent book. The Academic & The Artist Cloudcast
Ostensibly antiracist politics that treat racial categories as if they were real perpetuate what they purport to resist. As this form of counterproductive antiracism becomes hegemonic in our culture, the Fieldses insights are increasingly salient. Blake Smith, Washington Examiner
