Steve Martinot – författare

An extensive critique of the structures of whiteness and how they produce racism in the United States

An important history of the way class formed in the US, The Rule of Racialization offers a rich new look at the invention of whiteness and how the inextricable links between race and class were formed in the seventeenth century and consolidated by custom, social relations, and eventually naturalized by the structures that organize our lives and our work. Arguing that, unlike in Europe, where class formed around the nation-state, race deeply informed how class is defined in this country and, conversely, our unique relationship to class in this country helped in some ways to invent race as a distinction in social relations. Martinot begins tracing this development in the slave plantations in 1600s colonial life. He examines how the social structures encoded there lead to a concrete development of racialization. He then takes us up to the present day, where forms of those structures still inhabit our public and economic institutions.Throughout, he engages historical and contemporary thinkers on the nature of race in the US, creating a book that at once synthesizes significant critiques of race while at the same time offers a completely original conception of how race and class have operated in American life throughout the centuries. A uniquely compelling book, The Rule of Racialization offers a rich contribution to the study of class, labor, and American social relations. Author note: Steve Martinot is Instructor at the Center for Interdisciplinary Programs at San Francisco State University. He has edited two previous books, and translated Racism by Albert Memmi.

A groundbreaking effort to find the "common language" between two of the most important philosophical thinkers of the twentieth century, Forms in the Abyss promises to be one of the most significant contribution to our critical understanding of western thought in recent memory.

This book is about the culture of the US police, and what it is that allows them to be as violent as they are. It approaches the elements of police culture by analyzing how they respond to incidents called by people who need help (calls to 911) and that contain no danger, and no urgency. Such situations begin peacefully, with no need for law enforcement. Yet someone gets shot and injured or killed by the police. What does that represent? How does that happen?To answer such questions, a deep analysis of the mind of the police, listing structures by which they think, is necessary. What assumptions must they make, and how must they approach people? How do they include impunity, insularity, contempt, provocation, militarism, collective thought, obeisance, and racism in what they do? These are not trained. They are not part of a cop’s job description. Why do the police embrace them? Each represents a different facet of social hegemony. How is that continually reproduced? And what is the police final program, the political game for which they need these structures.