Aiming to refute the notion that racism is a set of irrational prejudices, the contributors use scientific theory, philosophical reasoning and concepts of morality. They examine the nature of racism conceptually and historically as described in scientific, legal and socio-political literature.

Introduction, David Theo Goldberg; racisms, Kwame Anthony Appiah; biology and the new racism, Martin Barker; race and gender - the role of analogy in science, Nancy Stepan; toward a critical theory of "race", Lucius Outlaw; racism and the West - from Praxis to Logos, Christian Delacampagne; equality - beyond dualism and oppression, John L.Hodge; the fact of blackness, Frantz Fanon; Bichon and the blacks, Roland Barthes; African Grammar, Roland Barthes; what Celie knows that you should know, Barbara Christian; "I'm down on whores" - race and gender in Victorian London, Sander Gilman; "Ours to Jew or Die" - Celine and the categories of anti-semitism, Julia Kristeva; interrogating identity - postcolonial prerogative, Homi K.Bhabha; Zionism from the standpoint of its victims, Edward W.Said; racism and the innocence of law, Peter Fitzpatrick; one nation under a groove - the cultural politics of race and racism in Britain, Paul Gilroy; paradoxes of universality, Etienne Balibar; the social formation of racist discourse, David Theo Goldberg; critical remarks, Henry Louis Gates Jr.