New Book: The Cost of Privilege: Taking On the System of White Supremacy and Racism

[Joe Navarro <jlnhca@yahoo.com>]

I would like to introduce The Cost of Privilege: Taking On the System of White Supremacy and Racism by Chip Smith.  I helped with the research for this book and two of my poems are featured.  Please read the following description and information about The Cost of Privilege.  If you have any questions please contact Chip Smith or reply to this email.  Thank you.
  --Joe Navarro
   
   
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 1, 2007
  CONTACT: Chip Smith  
  910-670-0891, www.CostofPrivilege.com
   
   
  The Cost of Privilege  Taking on the System of White Supremacy and Racism  By Chip Smith   
  480 pages, ISBN: 978-0-97918-180-9, $19.95 paperback
  Publication date: March 1, 2007
   
   
  This is a path-breaking study of the sometimes baffling dynamics of racial oppression in the United States. In fact, this is the most comprehensive and clear analysis of racism and national oppression that I?ve seen. I especially like the fact that this is a call for action against racial injustice. Sun Tzu wrote the classic ?The Art of War?; but this is book about the ?art of liberation? in America today. It is recommended reading for any serious activist fighting for social justice in our time. Not just theory, but a guide to action! --Komozi Woodard, Professor of History, Public Policy & Africana Studies, Sarah Lawrence College
   
   
  The Cost of Privilege tears through the matrix of ?race relations? to expose a power structure that has shaped all economic, political and cultural life in the United States, since colonial settler days. 
   
  The visible half of that system is the systematic oppression, super-exploitation and demonization of people of color by a white capitalist elite. But the system also requires regular white folks accepting it as normal and natural, even though they pay a terrible cost for it. This white acquiescence is based on the systematic awarding of white privileges, large and small, to everyday working people who sometimes cling desperately to "whiteness" and often don?t recognize the role their lives play in a much larger scheme.
   
  In spite of the depth and breadth of the analysis, this is an accessible, almost conversational book. Interspersed in the chapters are descriptions of fascinating historical events, concrete current examples, tools for building organization and dismantling racism, personal stories, poems, and bullet points for ease of use. Smith?s engaging and personal writing provides the tools necessary to take on the questions every activist comes up against:
   
      * Are "identity politics" a roadblock to working class unity?
      * How do you do organizing in mainly white workplaces, schools, communities?
      * Where do gender, women's oppression and resistance fit into the big picture?
      * How far can people of color trust white activists?
      * How do privileges affect our day-to-day lives,+ and what can we do about it?
   
  The Cost of Privilege aims to give a broader context for current areas of activism, and to contribute to building a movement that can transform society for the benefit of the vast majority. This book is a call to action based on a clear understanding of history and the economic, physical, and cultural methods that have been used to keep people divided.
   
   
  The Cost of Privilege is one of those rare books that manages to blend first-rate analysis around racism and white supremacy, with first-rate class analysis as well. The result is that the reader gains invaluable insights into the ways in which capitalism and white supremacy have interacted to produce and reproduce injustice, and the ways in which the working class has remain divided by the promise of white privilege to some of its members. This is an important and insightful volume.--Tim Wise, author, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
   
   
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 
   
  An anti-racist activist for 40 years, author Chip Smith has been a Machinists union steward, stay-at-home dad, staffer for Jobs with Justice, and scholar. His Ph.D. dissertation at Temple University (1994) examined the impact of Philadelphia's de-industrialization on low wages, African Americans and unionization. He currently lives in Fayetteville, N.C., where he was a founder of the local Peace with Justice coalition in 2001.


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