When Affirmative Action Was White

This book was written in 2006, and I'll just say that it's pretty depressing reading it in 2025. Katznelson methodically details the extremely recent history of government and industry-based affirmative action policies during the early to relatively late 20th century that were designed to help white people over others, revealing the ridiculousness of the claim that racism or systemic racism is "far in the past." The relatively hopeful notes about the gains more appropriate affirmative action has yielded for unfairly discriminated against groups was hard to read given the current environment, but only underscores the need to push for even greater reforms in the future. Highly recommend

Excellent book, that uses a historic view on New Deal legislation to show that, especially driven by the relentless racism of Southern Democrats, provisions were consistently included to largely keep the black population from those benefits. Ira Katznelson argues that this was equivalent to affirmative action for white people, and that understanding that can be used to guide a more successful, continued effort for affirmative action.