US liberalism blocks the radical structural and institutional changes necessary to bring about justice more equally enjoyed by all.

This book challenges liberal diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) approaches, which emphasize the importance of listening, learning, sitting in discomfort, dialoguing, and collaborative problem-solving with others. Arguing this approach doesn't and can't work in the conditions of US liberalism, Jennifer Kling and Leland Harper suggest that humanists, scholars, activists, and community members must radically reimagine what political power is and how it ought to function to bring about the best future possible in a globalized, growing, technologized, and burning world.

Race, Justice, and American Liberalism brings together a number of philosophical and political-theoretical and practical-domains of discourse. By creating such a collage of ongoing conversations and debates that ordinarily function in isolation from one another, Kling and Harper work to substantially change the dominant liberal narrative surrounding DEIJ, US politics, and futurity. They offer a theoretical framework that is complete enough and nuanced enough to operate well at both a highly abstract level of discourse (the scholarship) and on the ground in the day-to-day (the activism). Their work thus advances political philosophical thought by setting out the groundwork for a new program of political philosophical research and activism.

Leland Harper is a Canadian philosopher who has held academic appointments at Siena Heights University, USA, and Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Canada. He is the author of Multiverse Deism: Shifting Perspectives of God and the World(Lexington Books, 2020) and co-author of Racist, Not Racist, Antiracist: Language and the Dynamic Disaster of American Racism (Lexington Books, 2022). He is the founder and lead consultant of Leland Harper Consulting, a Canadian consulting firm that supports organizations in moving beyond symbolic diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitments toward sustainable policies, governance structures, professional development programs, and leadership practices.

Jennifer Kling is Professor of Philosophy, Co-Director of the Center for Legal Studies, and Co-Director of the Center for Research Frontiers in the Digital Humanities at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA. She is the author of Contemporary Politics and Classical Chinese Thought: Toward Globalizing Political Philosophy (with Colin J. Lewis, Oxford 2024), Can War Be Justified? A Debate (with Andrew Fiala, Routledge 2023), Racist, Not Racist, Antiracist: Language and the Dynamic Disaster of American Racism (with Leland Harper, Lexington 2022), The Philosophy of Protest: Fighting for Justice without Going to War (with Megan Mitchell, Rowman & Littlefield 2021), and War Refugees: Risk, Justice, and Moral Responsibility (Lexington 2019).