Destructive Impulses: An Examination of an American Secret in Race Relations: White Violence Book

White violence in America is a hidden issue in race relations that must be addressed before the racial impasse between black and white can be transcended. This innovative book cites the failure to raise this issue of white violence in the race relations debate as the cause of the omnipresent gap in the search for a resolution to the race problem. Serving also as an historical essay that looks at white violence in America in its overt and secretive forms, this book suggests that allowing history to teach us how to avoid the mistakes of the past will make bridging the racial abyss more probable. Contents: Introduction; In Search of a Theoretical Basis for White Violence Against Blacks: Finding Windows of Opportunity; Crucible of American Violence: Historical Perception; White Violence: The Sealing of a Partnership in a Cultural Community of Whiteness; White Violence: The Leveling Force in Race Relations; Destructively Common: Racial Radicalism and the Era of Separate But Equal; Images: The Ritual of Lynching; Johnny's March Home: A Violent Perception in the Inter-War Years; Destructive Impulses: Circumventing Brown v. Board of Education; Black Violence: A Mirror Image of its Creator; Seeds of Destruction: The White Backlash and an Attack on Affirmative Action; Past, Present, Future: The State of Race Relations; Notes.

Author Biography: A.J. Williams-Myers is an Associate Professor of Black Studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz.