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Voices of Pain & Voices of Hope: Students Speak About Racism
by Jerome Rabow
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Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company; ISBN: 0787298255 Our Price: $16.95  

Praise for Voices of Pain & Voices of Hope:

• Professor Jerome Rabow has put together an extremely valuable book which demonstrates that, despite much progress since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, racism in its many guises is still alive.  In addition to the convincing evidence for the persistence of this long standing America dilemma, Voices of Pain and Voices of Hope provides a method for dealing with the problem.  College courses in which students express their individual experiences with racism  both orally and in writing  become the place for meaningful dialogue in which real attitude change takes place.  The many quotations from students, give a convincing first-hand feel for the problem as well as demonstrating the process of confrontation with prejudicial attitudes in their living form.  An impressive and psychologically insightful work.
  Louis Breger, Ph.D Professor of Psychoanalytic Studies, Emeritus at California Institute of Technology, founding president of the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, author of Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision (Wiley & Sons, 2000)
   
• Rabow and his students have tackled to topic of racial relations in a way that finally makes the disparities between Whites and other ethnicities in American society self-evident. This is the raw, emotional, human experience of racism, from the perspective of both the oppressors and the oppressed (who, we learn, can sometimes be one and the same). Through the experiences of his students, Rabow elucidates the dominance of White culture in example after example, until it becomes impossible to deny. Though scholarly and academic, this work has the heart and soul that are missing from many theoretically- or empirically-focused discussions of race. The end result is a dispiriting, but ultimately hopeful perspective that calls each of us to consider what being an American really means."
  Terri D. Conley, Ph.D. Social Science Research Council Fellow and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology, California State University, Northridge
   
• Voices of Pain and Voices of Hope is required reading for anyone wanting to learn about contemporary racism and how this form of domination is learned, practiced and comes to have widespread and deep impacts in our society. Rabow communicates and illustrates through the writings of their college students the multiple dimensions and dynamics of racism in the lives of young people and in their relationships with each other and with their elders.  The book creatively and effectively describes the experiences and feelings of their college students about the meaning of race and racism in their every-day-lives. Using a powerful metaphor of a paint brush and bucket of white paint that is wielded for the most part by White Americans readers are skillfully and engagingly taught about a topic that is all too often ignored or dealt with in vague and otherwise confusing ways. Based on how it has impacted me, I strongly recommend that you read "Voices of Pan and Voices of Hope."
  James Crowfoot, Ph.D, Professor Emeritus of Natural Resources and Urban and Regional Planning and Dean Emeritus of the School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and former President of Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio.
   
• This extremely perceptive book succinctly illustrates how today's new racism undermines our talk about tolerance, understanding and social justice. This book should be read by students and the parents of students who wish to understand what growing up in America is about. It is especially important for teachers at all levels of our educational system.
  Carole Donahue, Los Angeles Unified School District Academic Mentor Coordinator
   
• The list of social critics and pundits who claim to speak for students confronting racial and ethnic tensions on college campuses grows longer each year, but there is nothing quite so convincing as the voices of students themselves. Rabow's book provides these students with a megaphone, and they use it to address the complexity of issues that engage them -- thereby avoiding the cliches that have so often rendered 'the debate about race on campus' stale and sterile. This is, in contrast, a breath of fresh air.
  Troy Duster, Professor, New York University.
   
• Voices is both street smart and theoretically sophisticated. It allows the students to speak in their own voices and their stories are often moving even to veterans like myself. What they have to say resonates beyond the campus and demands to be heard everywhere.
  Howard J. Ehrlich, Director, The Prejudice Institute and Editor of Perspectives: The newsletter of prejudice, ethnoviolence and social policy.
   
• This book conclusively refutes the notion that racism is dead. Brilliantly probing racial matters, Jerome Rabow examines accounts from college student journals. White, Black, Asian, Latino, Indian, and multiracial students grapple with the realities of racial oppression that many white Americans deny. Ever painful, often profound, the accounts offer major insights about the persisting tragedy of white racism. One senses here great pessimism, as students of color document much painful discrimination by teachers, clerks, and the police. But there is hope too, for in their journals many students of all backgrounds show they have learned to respect others and to work assertively for the elimination of racism.
  Joe Feagin, Graduate Research Professor, University of Florida, and author Racist America (Routledge, 2000)
   
• Voices of Pain.... belongs in the public discourse on where this nation
  is on issues affecting race and ethnicity. I am excited to see this publication and would urge all Americans to read this work and ponder its contents.
  California State Assemblymember, Jackie Goldberg
   
• Is the American "melting pot" working?  Is racism and prejudice on the wane?  Not according to Professor Rabow's students, who reveal in this provocative new book how old ideas and attitudes about race and difference persist in our new multi-cultural, multi-ethnic world.
  Neal Goldberg, L.C.S.W. and author
   
• "Voices offers compelling evidence that should challenge those who believe that racist actions are infrequent and only an annoyance. Professor Rabow, through the voices of his students, demonstrates the high degree of regularity, the prevalence and the pain of racism for children of color as well as the sense of privilege that develops among whites. This book also shows that when the pain is brought into the open and conflicts unfold, it then becomes possible for resolutions to occur. This book should be read by all of us who teach and care about the future of American race relations."
  Morgan Hatch, Teacher, L.A. Unified School District.
   
• "Voices of Pain and Voices of Hope chronicles the experiences that University of California Los Angeles students have with racism and prejudice and the pain it invokes.  Racism is alive and well in US society. Professor Rabow documents the process in which students recognize that they are racist.  All too often individuals perceive the "other" as racist and do not consider the "self" as racist. It is vital that this self-realization occurs so that racial/ethnic differences can be embraced rather than shunned. The transformation that students experienced in this course is a nascent beginning.  The challenge they confront is to go beyond the classroom and affect change in the broader society. This book encapsulates the hope that someday racial/ethnic differences will be embraced and appreciated, that racism will be dead and that America will fulfill its promise .of participation and hope for all.
  Anthony Hernandez, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Charter College of Education, California State University Los Angeles
   
• "Voices of Pain and Voices of Hope is a must-read text for students of race relations. A racial mosaic of privilege and disadvantage, Rabow's students come alive before our very eyes in this timely work. We hear their voices loud and clear. They chronicle the pain engendered by continuing racial oppression in America, but still manage to provide us with reasons to hope for a better future."
  Darnell M. Hunt, Ph.D.
  Director, Center for African American Studies. Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles. Author, O.J. Simpson Fact and Fictions (Cambridge Press 1999)
   
• "When articulate college students dig deeply into their experience of race and speak honestly about it, the result is a revealing picture of the challenge of diversity in America." 
  Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School, best-selling author of Evolve! and World Class.
   
• A literary documentary, Voices walks the reader through the real life experiences of individuals who have personally been affected by the racism that covertly exists in America today. (Prof. Rabow challenges the old boys club, thereby breaking free from his silent privilege and adding to the canon on diversity.) Having participated in the class as an undergraduate student at UCLA, I was reminded of the voices of my own journey and understanding of Privilege and Oppression. Currently, I teach and work in the area of diversity and I recognize the necessity of this book. It is a must read for all who teach Race and who wish to have an impact on their students understanding of the chasms that exist between races and ethnicities. Honest, candid and real, the reader is exposed to the truths of the voices of oppressed and privileged individuals.
  Ani Karayan, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychology, Antioch University Los Angeles
   
• Jerome Rabow's Voices of Pain and Voices of Hope; Students Speak About Racism. is an enormously impressive work. It is an original and daring approach to understanding the meaning of race among today's college students. At large universities like UCLA and Berkeley the faculty for the most part "deal" with simmering racial tensions and pain by ignoring them, hoping that it will all just go away. Rabow in contrast puts the confrontation of our feelings about race and racism at the core of his teaching, confronting rather than avoiding resentments and insensitivities that students bring with them to the Big U which, I fear, we as professors only exacerbate. "Voices" is based on a series of quite special courses Rabow taught in the past few years in which, in addition to the usual readings and assignments, students kept journals of their reactions to and reflections on the often very emotional in-class goings on. Race, gender and sexual preference become intertwined in ways that many older academics will find discomforting, reminding us that, above all, these are the thoughts and feelings of individuals caught up in many dimensions of trauma and conflict, but in America the racial dimension is always paramount. I recommend this book to anyone concerned with the growing racial divide in the United States; I especially recommend it to those who do not see this growing divide.
  David Lopez, Professor of Sociology at UCLA.
   
• This book can be appreciated on two levels. At one level, it is a record of a white male professor's discovery of the pervasiveness of racism even decades after the civil rights movement. At a second level, it is a collection of college students' accounts of either surviving the pain of racism or coming to realize the privileges they had never noticed. Many professors fear direct and concrete debates on race in their classroom, but Professor Rabow voluntarily chose a method of instruction that would expose and interrogate the biases of himself and his students. "Voices of Pain" emerged from this experience, and documents how prejudice continues to operate in everyday life. It's a book you won't soon forget.
  Laura L. Miller, Social Scientist, RAND
   
• My recent work with outreach to middle and high school students from
  educationally disadvantaged schools and communities suggests that the school environment directly impacts how we learn and succeed in life. A simple "commitment to diversity" is insufficient for involving all students in their education. This book points to the urgent need to create an environment on our campuses that embraces differences rather than tolerating them, an essential ingredient to teaching and learning.
  Jane S. Permaul, Chief Operating Officer,UCLA ,Outreach, Assistant Vice Chancellor Emeritus
   
• "Voices of Pain and Voices of Hope is an insightful book about how college students learn about, experience and struggle with racial prejudice. Based on the personal journals that students kept as they took Rabow's course, the book is an excellent answer to those who mistakenly argue that we are in a post-racist society. Students in courses dealing with race and ethnic diversity will easily identify with the material since it is based on the experiences of their peers." 
  Fred L. Pincus, Co-Editor "Race and Ethnic Conflict", 2nd Edition (Westview, 1999) and affiliated with the University of Maryland Baltimore County
   
• This work represents an important contribution to all of the voices that must be heard as we struggle with issues of difference, conflict and change. This book is part text, part classroom exercise and part life lesson.  It is a necessary addition to any personal reading list and any professional library.
  Jorja Prover, Adjunct Professor, UCLA Department of Social Welfare
   
• Dr. Rabow casts a light on the dark side of cultural issues impacting therapy. The wounds of racism not only help shape the individual's identity, these wounds also give rise to deep emotions. Dr. Rabow demonstrates that it is not only important to know the client's experiences of racism; it is imperative the clinician be aware of his or her own prejudices which may affect the therapist's perception of the client...and the client's perception of the therapist.
  Carolyn J. Roberts, Ph.D. MFT
   
• Therapists, parents and students should read this work. As a therapist, I found Dr. Rabow's research valuable in reminding us that the road to self-acceptance is still littered with the obstacles of racism. He brilliantly illustrates the connection between self acceptance and acceptance of others, and paints the destructive picture of both the false sense of superiority and inferiority that racism imposes. The book illustrates how healing can occur when diversity is not just tolerated but embraced.
  Toby Salter, MA, MFT
   
• Voices of pain & Voices of Hope is a highly readable and wonderful contribution to the large and growing literature on race and racism in America.  By exploring the journals of college students from one of America's most multiethnic campuses, it allows the reader to get an inside-out grasp of the depth, breadth and power of racism as it is experienced in everyday life.  While America has certainly made great progress in confronting the dreadful scourge of racial oppression, this book makes it painfully clear just how much serious work still needs to be done.  This is a very valuable book for anyone interested in gaining insight into the complex, multifaceted and subtle dynamics of race in American society.
  Professor James Sidanius, Professor of Psychology and Political Science, The University of California, Los Angeles, author of Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression, Cambridge University Press (2001)
   
• Professor Jerome Rabow takes on the tough issues of racism in the university, exposing its many dimensions in the lives of young people today. His approach to teaching is brave, sensitive, and audacious. This book lets students speak of their own experience, revealing to us as readers both their pain and their hope. It is an inspiring work of pedagogy that further advances the dialogue on race and racism in America. We all have a great deal to learn from these voices.
  Jill Stein, Director of Sociology, Dept. of Sociology & Anthropology, Santa Barbara City College
   
• From the manuscript we find out that all is not well in one of the nation's most ethnically diverse campuses. Through these voices on the ground, we see that racism for this new college generation is not so subtle and race is not so unimportant as many would claim, even among UCLA students, who are selected for their desire to attend a diverse campus and their purported greater intellect. We learn that the incidents of intolerance that these students endured can be deeply scarring and enduring. These issues, although central in the life of many of our students, are probably unbeknownst to most professors. If we had a way to formally train college professors as educators, then I think this should become a required book. The book is short and its presentational style makes it an easy read but the central message is well driven and supported with engaging passages from the students.
  Eddie Telles, Professor of Sociology, University of California Los Angeles
   
• VOICES OF PAIN, VOICES OF HOPE explores our struggles with racism in a vital way: from the inside out. This book teaches that the social psychology of racism is based, above all, on fear and vulnerability. Racism can be challenged in important ways by facing up to the shameful privilege it defends and the inner pain it masks. Rabow's students can be our teachers. This book will make a valuable contribution to courses in sociology, psychology, education, and ethnic studies.
  Howard Winant, University of California, Santa Barbara, author of THE WORLD IS A GHETTO