"Sheena M. Mason advances the bold claim that racism is a crazy-making regime that inspires jaundiced categorizations of American life in a foolish attempt to order things by 'race.' Theory of Racelessness represents an unapologetic commitment to the elimination of racism and the corresponding belief in race. It is an unwavering attempt to wrestle squarely with the historical and contemporary facts of racism, without making the mistake of reifying common beliefs about race. Mason displays an incredible synergistic and critical comprehension of philosophical theories and arguments about race, and the relevance of each to grounding a new interpretive methodology and pedagogy of African American literature. Mason artfully reframes the supposition that race is real and matters with the more astute contention that racism is real and matters. Mason’s text emerges at the intersection of philosophy of race and African American literary studies…offering a scathing critique of disciplinary suppositions that clears the way for a prescient understanding of African American literature."

-Jacoby Adeshei Carter, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Howard University

“Those of us who have grown proud of our ability to do anti-racist work in the classroom will find humility encountering Sheena Mason’s Theory of Racelessness. Mason asks us to throw out the familiar script and join in a conversation that is suddenly fresher, broader, and even more challenging. This is absolutely necessary reading.”

-George Hovis, Professor of English, SUNY Oneonta

"This is how the world becomes a better place. Dr. Mason joins a growing number of thinkers issuing a clarion call to see past the restrictive and divisive boundaries of the racial worldview in order to truly and finally overcome racism. Her insights and arguments invite everyone with an open mind and a true desire to overcome racism to resist the ways we’ve been socialized to orient our sense of self based on a malicious myth, and to consider how we can preserve pride in overcoming oppression without continuing to reify and perpetuate the false divisions that enable oppression. Dr. Mason reminds us that race is an inherently nebulous and nefarious concept, and she urges us to act on that truth by making the necessary effort to eliminate it from the ways we understand and define human identity. Race is an inherited idea, not a feature of immutable heredity. Dr. Mason invites us to interrogate the bad idea of race and move towards a world made better by its absence."

-Carlos Hoyt, Author of The Arch of a Bad Idea