Rating: 
Summary: It's what we do with the life we are given.
Review: "Creating Equal" is about the man, Ward Connerly, who has abundantly maximized his life and despite what many might call an "underprivileged" upbringing and start in life. From his earliest beginnings, all the way up and through his childhood, teens,early successes and setbacks and on throughout his experiences as the Campaign Chairman of the very controversial and popular California Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 209, approved by voters in 1996, we gain an insight into the strong figures of faith, constancy and love who impressed upon him the courage necessary for and dignity in standing up for freedom, liberty, and respect for one's self and others. The photos in the book are a wonderful asset -- putting the reader into contact with those holding a special place in his heart and life. The underlying principle of his book is that each person must stand up for his own principles, have courage and faith, to succeed at whatever one endeavors to achieve. That the great words given us by Martin Luther King Jr are applicable to each and every person despite physical manifestations and incidents of birth. He says little about the opponents to the initiative he spearheaded, providing instead quotes and incidents to illustrate his belief that one does not fight racism through encouraging more racism. That while opponents used some very nasty name-calling and insinuations against him; it wasn't necessary to respond in kind -- that one could indeed rise above the scar of racism and no matter the circumstance. Ward Connerly's book is a first hand testimony and testament to how character and courage are the wings enabling one to rise above hills and swamps, soaring above the clouds in order to reach the stars; to making dreams into realities.
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Summary: For all who not only think but want to KNOW
Review: "Creating Equal" is about creating a better America. While some may disagree with Connerly's approach, those who either blindly hate or love him owe it to themselves to know the man behind the caricature.... Connerly's prose and storytelling bring the reader an insight that will challenge pre-conceived notions about the man and the policy he seeks to change. We get encounters with politicians big and small [in] easy-to-read but hard-to-forget experiences laid out page after page in striking detail. Connerly's experience is in many ways the American experience. We all have hurdles to overcome, to kick down, to go around. But America is not about self-pitying, not about being eat up by hate and distrust. America is about each individual, apart from any "group" they may belong to, finding the abundant opportunity so many newcomers to our shores -- fleeing war, genocide and persecution -- see so readily. Connerly's lesson to us all is we "create equal" by starting to get our government to see us as equals. Only then can we truly get back on the long but necessary journey towards seeing one another as equals. Highly recommended.
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Summary: Carying on the Spirit of thde Civil Right s Movement
Review: ...As a civil rights activist in the 50s & 60s I found this book inspiring, hopeful and a testament of integrity. In addition it perspicaciously describes the way politicians...are willing to sacrifice principle to pander to reverse discrimination.... I only wish more people had the interity and courage of a Ward Connerly to assert the priniple of equal justice for all, rather than special privilege and preference for some. I plan to use this book in my philosophy courses at the college where I teach. A must read!
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Summary: Fighting the Injustices of the Civil Rights Industry
Review: A powerful portrayal of the violent, hate-based, anti-white underbelly of the civil rights industry in Amreica, woven neatly into the autobiography of a black man struggling for true racial equality. Here is clear and convincing evidence of the trials and tribulations a man of color is forced to confront, when he seeks "justice for all" in the one-sided, Europhobic world of "race norming" and "Affirmative Discrimination" in America. Ward Connerly, tells how he was successful in eliminating institutionalized racial preferences in some cases -- but at great cost. Connerly is reviled by the gimme-gimme crowd headed by the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who view racial controversy as an opportunity to accumulate enormous personal wealth. Connerly writes that Jackson has called him "strange fruit," among other things. It seems many so-called civil rights leaders take advantage of every opportunity to thwart Connerly's steady march toward racial justice. In the Spring of 2001, Justice Clarence Thomas warned: "By yielding to a false civility, we sometimes allow our critics to intimidate us. Active citizens are often subjected to truly vile attacks." So it was for Ward Connerly, but his courage overcame the fascists' attacks. This book takes the reader along on a journey to justice with Ward Connerly -- a brave and honorable man.
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Summary: Moving and Informative
Review: Anyone who seeks public office should be sentenced to read this book first. The story of Ward's life is fantastic. I've seen enough PBS movies on race to know that if PBS did a movie on Ward Connerly's life the ratings for that documentary would be phenomenal. I also believe that this book should be on College and High School reading lists. Ward Connerly is a healer. I love America. I believe that his existence will go down in history.
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Summary: A Man of Honor, by fermed
Review: As a resident of California I have voted consistently for propositions which would eliminate discrimination based on race. It seems like a simple decision to forbid the government from racial discriminations, whatever their appearance. I had, of course, heard of Ward Connerly and his leadership in keeping such discrimination out of the higher educational system; but I had not read his book until recently, and once more I was amazed and infuriated by what the Left (Maxine Waters, The Reverend Jackson, and the rest) does to those who cross them. Amazed and infuriated that a man of principle would have to put up with attacks on his probity and his integrity. Mr. Connerly's contention that no one should be excluded from higher education in California because of skin color is not in the least revolutionary: and yet his attempts to try to institutionalize such a principle have brought him personal insults and the overt hatred of those wanting to keep a system of racial preferences. A system that humiliates blacks and Hispanics and excludes many Asians. Racial preferences are a form of telling minorities that they are too dumb to compete, too lazy to sustain themselves in a higher education system, and too unmatched intellectually to be compared to the rest of the population. It is also a way of telling others (whites and Asians) to go seek their education elsewhere. This book, aside from being a delightful history of one man's rise to the top, is also a practical manual on the politics of intimidation and deceit with which the Left treats those who dare speak the truth, if such truth is at variance with their plans. I am sorry that decent and honest people like Ward Connerly are forced to live through the horrors that the Left keeps in store for individuals like him who speak out, and who then try to implement their ideas. In the end Connerly will continue to be victorious, of course. It is just a pity that so much pain is involved in actualizing his honest and sound ideas.
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Summary: A Roadmap for Getting BEYOND RACE...
Review: For any student of public policy, Creating Equal should be required reading. For anyone interested in learning how decisions are made on governing boards of higher education, this book is a must read. For anyone interested in exploring how America can make race a thing of the past, Creating Equal is insightful and highly informative. For anyone who believes that all black families are dysfunctional and incapable of surviving absent affirmative action, this book will dispel that myth. For anyone who believes that white racism is alive and flourishing or that all discrimination is gone, this book represents a hopeful, realistic and optimistic assessment. I give it a five star rating. One of the most interesting books I have ever read, even if I had disagreed with Connerly on some of his beliefs. As one reviewer said, "this is one of the best political books of the year," and perhaps of our time. I could not agree more.
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Summary: Superb
Review: From the first chapter--describing Connerly's visit to the White House to discuss race relations with Bill Clinton and Al Gore--to the last, Creating Equal is a thoroughly captivating memoir. Connerly provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes history of the battles to eliminate racial preferences in California, Houston, Tex., Washington, and Florida. Connerly's steadfastness in the face of vicious personal attacks is inspiring-a real testament to his commitment to racial progress. This commitment, we learn, is nothing new. For example, as a student at Sacramento State, Connerly learned that local landlords were refusing to rent out their apartments to minority students. In response, Connerly--despite a threat from the college president--led a massive investigation and helped bring about California's fair housing law. Politics aside, the stories from Connerly's hardscrabble childhood are poignant without being sappy--readers will love getting to know Connerly's hardworking, country-music loving Uncle James and his tough-as-nails grandmother. For people who care about the future of race relations, this cogently argued, beautifully written book is a must-read.
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Summary: Whoa Nellie! Nicely written but . . .
Review: I...read this book looking for insight into a person I disagree with -- often vehemently -- on the subject of race and rememdy. So I am adding my two cents on Connerly's book. "Creating Equal" is fine as far as books go, with fine writing and clever phrases, but fails to deal with the complex nature of its subject because the "civil rights" measures Connerly advocates do not deal with this complexity. A recent book, "The Unsteady March : The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America," by Philip A. Klinkner and Rogers M. Smith, demonstrates the inherent difficulty in democratic majority principles in operations when it comes to race. Not-so-subtle racial issues such as the right to vote or public accommodation laws would not have passed if majority of the non-minority (or White) vote was determinative of its outcome. It is a fact, however, that almost all progress for Blacks in the United States, both in politics and economics, have often come about through methods that were distinctly counter-majoritarian where the White population vote is concerned. What does this analysis mean for Connerly's vision? The race-neutral principle lauded by Ward Connerly advances a neutral government stance as if the principle sets the stage for action, both self action by Blacks and anti-backlash for Whites. Connerly's own life, however, stands as a testament that principle alone does not work. I urge anyone looking for balance to read the "The Unsteady March" and critically question the application of neutral principles to the factual analysis of the advancement of Blacks -- as a group not individuals -- within our society. If the advancement of Connerly's heartfelt vision truly includes the goal of a race neutral society, the supporters of this vision should work through an analysis of how progress on race has actually occurred in the past and question how best to make it occur in the future. Such an analysis is critical. I suggest that Connerly's vision places the principle before any effective means necessary to invest that principle with meaning. In other words, Connerly and his supporters reject the past (Connerly's past and our collective past) as prologue to the future; equating programs such as affirmative action with wrong-minded failure and rejecting all group-based remedies acknowledging race as a factor. As an alternative, I suggest that active intervention was the catalyst for minority progress in the past, and some form of similar action, albeit open to vigorous debate, is necessary for further progress. The action-based race programs Connerly despises were not the cause of the inequality that existed in his youth. It was not the lack of rugged, self-made individualists that stifled Black progress in the past. I believe Connerly is flat wrong when he concludes that the only modern solution is neutral civil rights action on the part of the government to "Create Equality." Connerly gets three stars for the book, no stars for his majoritarian approach to enforcing his vision, and a suggestion that critical readers look at other works such as Orlando Patterson's "The Ordeal of Integration: Progress and Resentment in America's 'Racial' Crisis" and/or Klinkner's and Smith's "The Unsteady March : The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America"....
Rating:
Summary: A Courageous Man and a Brilliant Book....
Review: 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. At last someone other than a radical black or white "civil rights professional" has found a way to speak to these issues and reach all Americans--not merely the campus crowd. Connerly rightly deserves to be more widely known not merely as an opponent of race preferences but rather as a matchless defender of free speech and conscience, a cause for which he has also suffered dearly at one university after another throughout our country. Whatever shape our future will take regarding race, Ward Connerly's personal and public odyssey will be part of the answer, as it is a clear sign for renewed hope that reason and sanity may yet prevail.
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