Category Archives: Race in America

Race in America, Black, white, and otherwise.

July 8, 2011 · 10:04 am

Black Rednecks and White Liberals. Thomas Sowell.

 

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell

Black Rednecks and White Liberals. Thomas Sowell. Encounter Books, 2005.

The approval by voters of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative corroborates Thomas Sowell’s observation in his Preface to the book, referring to “a growing willingness to consider views that differ from the racial orthodoxy that has prevailed largely unchallenged from the 1960s onward in intellectual circles and in the popular media.” The education, government, business, and media elites of Michigan all banded together to hammer into the population the same old tiresome racial orthodoxy, to no avail. The people had had over forty years of it, experienced it in lived life, and would have no more of it. By an overwhelming fifty-eight percent, they voted to change direction, try something different from the orthodoxy of the liberal elites. Thomas Sowell’s book Black Rednecks and White Liberals suggests further lines for reconsideration and change….

Now available in

The Myth of the Enlightenment: Essays
Forthcoming, September, 2014.

https://www.earthrisepress.net/myth_of_the_enlightenment.html

Frederick Glaysher

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Race in America

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

June 22, 2011 · 11:40 am

Enough. Juan Williams.

 

Juan Williams

Juan Williams

Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure that are Undermining Black America–and What We Can Do About It. Juan Williams. Crown, New York. 2006.

The major shortcoming of Juan Williams book is that he doesn’t go far enough. But more of that later. It should first be said that he goes very far indeed, saying much that has needed to be said for years, if not decades. No mean achievement. The subtitle itself sets out much of the structure of the book: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure that are Undermining Black America–and What We Can Do About It. Williams’ discussion is built around Bill Cosby’s speech in 2004 on the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, as well as Cosby’s numerous other talks throughout the country since then, including Detroit….

Now available in

The Myth of the Enlightenment: Essays
Forthcoming, September, 2014.

https://www.earthrisepress.net/myth_of_the_enlightenment.html

Frederick Glaysher

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Race in America

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

June 21, 2011 · 9:17 am

Creating Equal. Ward Connerly.

 

Ward Connerly

Ward Connerly

Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences. Ward Connerly.

A Courageous Man and a Brilliant Book…. March 25, 2000

In Creating Equal, Ward Connerly returns the *human* dimension to the realities of race in America. Where so often what the poet Robert Hayden called “race rhetoric” substitutes for thought and dialogue, Connerly confronts long-held affirmative action doctrine with compelling insight into the pervasive devastation race preferences have actually had for all people. His emphasis on the necessity of basic human virtue and morality stands as both an indictment of us all and a call to struggle together toward a new vision of what it means to be an American….

 

Now available in

The Myth of the Enlightenment: Essays
Forthcoming, September, 2014.

https://www.earthrisepress.net/myth_of_the_enlightenment.html

Frederick Glaysher

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Race in America

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

June 20, 2011 · 11:10 am

A Dream Deferred. Shelby Steele.

Shelby Steele

Shelby Steele

A Dream Deferred : The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America. Shelby Steele.

Reawakening the Dream…. December 7, 2000

This morning, sometime around three or four AM, I woke up thinking about Shelby Steele’s A Dream Deferred. I read it a number of months ago and have been wanting to write a brief note about it. There are so few intelligent, reasonable, sane voices speaking about racial matters in America I feel it as a duty to try to acknowledge those who are so scorned by the forces of both white and black extremist liberalism. The thought that impelled me out of bed was that I owe it to my memory of the best friend I’ve ever had in my life, who happened to be black, long deceased and sorely missed. So I struggle for words, knowing I will never meet that high mark. Others may criticize Mr. Steele for emphasizing this and underplaying that, but I want to praise his thoughtful probing of the dynamics of affirmative action and how it assuages white guilt while keeping some black people from developing their highest potential. As a former college English instructor, I occasionally had minority students who were accustomed to being handed A’s and were shocked to receive C’s. Repeated experience convinced me that affirmative action was part of the problem. They lacked the self-discipline and responsibility that Steele extolls: “Very often those who educate poor blacks feel excused from the responsibilities of high expectations and academic rigor by the very conditions that make such expectations mandatory….”

Now available in

The Myth of the Enlightenment: Essays
Forthcoming, September, 2014.

https://www.earthrisepress.net/myth_of_the_enlightenment.html

Frederick Glaysher

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Race in America

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,