Cazenave Eyes: Memories of Racism and Racism Studies
by Noel Cazenave
ISBN 978-0-88286-034-3
$15
Buy from AK Press
As Professor Victoria Reyes so aptly puts it, Cazenave Eyes is “part memoir, part social history, and part social critique.” Through that rare methodological blend and its unique and powerful mix of passion, courage, profanity, vulnerability, spiritual evolution, and humor, Cazenave Eyes provides revealing insights into the struggles of people of color to be their authentic selves in predominantly white universities and other places that are all too often hostile to their very existence. With its brutally honest account of Professor Cazenave’s encounters with racial oppression, as well as his struggles to teach and write about racism in an honest and straightforward manner, Cazenave Eyes offers insightful lessons for those who must navigate such frightening places that can help empower them to not only survive, but indeed strive professionally and personally, without losing their minds, hearts, and souls.
PRAISE FOR CAZENAVE EYES
“Drawing from experiences growing up under Jim Crow and navigating a difficult academic journey, Cazenave Eyes is a candid memoir delving into the entrenched nature of systemic white racism in academia and society, and into the harsh personal costs of challenging it. With penetrating insight informed by a lifetime of first-rate scholarship, Cazenave recounts past and present struggles and through this long narrative envisions a future where the courage to be authentic and spiritually resilient can lead to meaningful change in the fight against racial injustice.”
—Joe R. Feagin, Ella C. McFadden, professor emeritus, Texas A&M University, author of The White Racial Frame, and 2000 president of the American Sociological Association.
“Noel Cazenave’s memoir, Cazenave Eyes: Memories of Racism and Racism Studies, is a powerfully penetrating account of the devastating effects racism has on Black people from birth through their golden years. This memoir sparkles with authenticity Cazenave masterfully employs while informing us about this disturbing story of racism. It is a story all Americans should know because we are all entangled in this awful American reality. Yet, the author provides us with great messages of the redemptive effects we can gain from racism if we refuse to let it conquer our souls.”
—Aldon Morris, professor emeritus, Northwestern University, author of The Scholar Denied: W.E.B. DuBois and the Birth of Modern Sociology, and 2021 president of the American Sociological Association.
“Cazenave’s book is a model for ethical academic sociological memoirs, a toolkit and guide for surviving and courageously fighting oppressive structures and the individuals who uphold them. More than an academic analysis, Cazenave’s work is spiritual, offering readers the strength to defiantly resist those who want us to remain invisible and complicit. His lessons encourage us to authentically embrace what makes us not “fit in” even if that means sometimes struggling alone.”
—Angie Beeman, professor of sociology, Baruch College, CUNY, and author of Liberal White Supremacy: How Progressives Silence Racial and Class Oppression.
“With searing insight and laser-focused clarity, Cazenave Eyes is an unflinching portrait of the US and the academy’s racism. Part memoir, part social history, and part social critique, Noel Cazenave situates his life as a Black man born under Jim Crow—and now a professor at the University of Connecticut—within both broader socioeconomic and political histories alongside contemporary events to document the continued pain, oppression, and consequences he and others face for living authentically in the academy, standing firm in his commitments to naming racism and serving as a witness to its havoc and destruction. Brutally honest, Cazenave Eyes is an urgent and timely book.”
—Victoria Reyes, associate professor of gender and sexuality studies, University of California, Riverside, and author of Academic Outsider: Stories of Exclusion and Hope.
“This profoundly candid and impactful work represents a pioneering contribution to the genre of academic memoirs. It is an essential read for anyone committed to achieving a world free from white supremacy.”
—Johnny E. Williams, professor of sociology, Trinity College, and author of Decoding Racial Ideology in Genomics.
“Cazenave Eyes transcends the boundaries of autobiography and becomes what John Hope Franklin once described as "a mirror to America." It reveals not just the personal toll of racism, exclusion, and social marginalization, but also the perseverance it takes to rise above it. His voice, unwavering even in the face of discomfort and pain, serves as a beacon for future generations of scholars. Cazenave Eyes is more than a reflection of one scholar's journey—it is a roadmap for how to confront the oppressive systems we face, using authenticity and self-awareness as guiding forces.”
—Waverly Duck, professor of sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara, and co-author with Anne Warfield Rawls of Tacit Racism.