Dismantling the Racism Machine: A Manual and Toolbox

This significantly updated second edition serves students and general readers alike who seek to learn what is often not taught, a basic history of race and racism in the US. If we are to dismantle systemic racism and create a more just society, people need a place to begin.

This accessible, introductory, and interdisciplinary guide can be one such place. Grounded in critical race theory, this book uses the metaphor of the Racism Machine to highlight that race is a social construct and that racism is a system of oppression based on invented racial categories. It debunks the false ideologies that race is biological, that race has always existed, that systemic racism is over, and that anti-White racism is real. As a manual, this book presents clear instructions for understanding the history of race and how a small elite created a racial hierarchy to protect their power through a divide-and-conquer strategy that lives on today.

As a toolbox, this book provides a variety of specific action steps that readers can take to address racism in a post-civil rights era where extremists have weaponized the study of race and racism.

Karen Gaffney is a Professor of English at Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey, where she teaches courses in composition, gender, and race. She presents at national conferences, facilitates anti-racism workshops in libraries and churches, serves in local anti-racism coalitions, and manages the website Divided No Longer, which provides a variety of anti-racism resources (available at dividednolonger.com).