About the Book:

BEYOND RACE is a serious and scholarly non-fiction work about communication, race, and public policy in America, and is designed for the general audience, policy makers, students, and scholars in a variety of disciplines and professions. Its subject matter focuses on America's racial dilemma, drawing from the O. J. Simpson case to the culture gap in America, from the rise and fall of the civil rights movement to the dialogue on reparations; from the increasingly souring black-Latino relations in America to America's new immigrants, from the poverty of national leadership on the question of race to the complexities in building a color-blind society, and from the politics of racial classification to the challenge of spreading American values abroad. BEYOND RACE is both prognostic and restorative.

The cobbling together of individuals from all corners of the globe to build what some scholars have called the “first truly universal nation” has been and continues to be the great American experiment. This unique experiment, which began centuries ago, has had its promises and its challenges. More than two hundred years after the founding of our nation, key questions remain. Why does race continue to matter in our public discourse? Why do Americans show a certain discomfort with each other when talking about race? Why do blacks and whites hold differing perceptions on every major issue? Is racism in America essentially a white problem? Can minority groups be racists? Is treating everyone the same the best way to be fair? Is being color-blind the very best approach to building a new vision of community in America? What does it mean to be a truly universal nation? How do we move our nation beyond race? This book reflects a commitment to addressing these questions and to dealing with one of the central challenges of our time: racial and ethnic inclusion in a changing global and knowledge-based economy.

Reviews:

Beyond Race contextualizes the dilemma of American diversity, prompts readers toward intellectual and personal introspection, and engages them in an examination of difficult issues in a manner that simultaneously confronts and values all people. It is an important book for leaders, professionals, educators, and students concerned with the challenges and promises of managing American diversity in a global context.
—Dr. Pamela M. Christian, assistant provost, Office of Diversity Planning and Assessment, at Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, California.

In Beyond Race, Nwosu reduces the social complexity of one of America's most difficult dialogues to a level which permits the engagement of a national audience, and in a language that resonates with our common experiences. Politically acute, insightful, and ultimately hopeful, Beyond Race is nothing less than a policy prescription for realizing the power of a true democracy.
—Dr. Sam Brown, Public Affairs Scholar, Schaefer Center for Public Policy, University of Baltimore
 
Beyond Race offers both the hope of a new way to approach community and a realistic and thoughtful examination of the underlying tensions of race and ethnic relations that make community so problematic. Community remains the tragic ideal, but through this book, we see the transcendent possibility in the call for a philosophy of inclusion and the desire to accept and acknowledge diversity as a fundamental element in our society.
—Dr. Raymond W. Cox III served as chief of staff to the lieutenant governor of New Mexico and is the current president of the Akron Council on World Affairs.

Nwosu sounds the clarion call for a new dialogue in a maturing politics of diversity and offers a fresh perspective to begin cross-cultural communication on a bridge to a post racial American society.
—Dr. Al Mariam, Professor of Political Science at California State, San Bernardino and author of American Constitutional Law: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights.

Contents:

Acknowledgments
1.    Beyond Race: A New Dialogue of Engagement
2.    Race and the Question of Fairness
3.    Closing the Culture Gap in America
4.    Coming to America: Newcomers in a New Society
5.    Black-Latino Relations
6.    Requiem for Civil Rights
7.    The Black Problem
8.    On David Horowitz and his Case against Reparations
9.    Barack Obama and the Politics of Racial Classification
10.    Beyond 9/11:American Values and Global Influence
References
Index

About the Author:

OGOM P. NWOSU graduated from Howard University, where he served as president of the Graduate Student Council in the John H. Johnson School of Communications. A nationally recognized expert on communication and diversity, his work includes consultation and technical support to public and private agencies on strategies for incorporating fairness and equity in planned programs of change. He is professor and former chair of the Department of Communication Studies, and now chair of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and director of the Center for Human Relations, at California State University, Northridge. A former Fulbright scholar in South Africa, he is author of several scholarly works, including two books: Transcultural Realities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Cross-Cultural Relations, and Communication and the Transformation of Society: A Developing Region’s Experience.