White Nationalism, Black Interests: Conservative Public Policy and the Black Community (African American Life Series)

Rating:
Summary: Agonizing
Review: Good grief. So here we have it, once more it is the Bush administration's fault. All of us evil conservatives want to beat down people of color. Give me a break.
Don't bother with this one, it is just one more screed from the left that robs people of hope. This book is damaging to your soul. If you listen to it you will get exactly what it portends. Ignore it and believe in what is possible. This is America. Anyone can do anything they set their mind to. Read "No Excuses" by the Thernstroms instead.

Rating:
Summary: Agonizing
Review: Good grief. So here we have it, once more it is the Bush administration's fault. All of us evil conservatives want to beat down people of color. Give me a break.
Don't bother with this one, it is just one more screed from the left that robs people of hope. This book is damaging to your soul. If you listen to it you will get exactly what it portends. Ignore it and believe in what is possible. This is America. Anyone can do anything they set their mind to. Read "No Excuses" by the Thernstroms instead.

Rating:
Summary: flight from civil rights to the new imperialism in the midea
Review: Ron Walters is a distinguished historian of race in America. In this book Walters presents an intelligible explanation for a phenomenon he chooses to call "White Nationalism." He refers mainly to the backlash against affirmative action and the ongoing attack on the 14th Amendment's application of equal protection and rights to historically discriminated groups. Walters manages to encompass "neoNazi crazies" and "Gingrichites"
within a single paradigm which denies the moral legitimacy of the claims of African-Americans for unfulfilled justice. Walters's paradigm is especially interesting when stretched to the post 9/11 new imperialism of America's special and exceptional mission to civilize the world. He sees this as a renewal of Kipling's call to Teddy Roosevelt to "take up the White Man's Burden" and extend our special virtues to the benighted of the Third World. The book is well document and by no means a simple screed or jeremiad from a liberal Democratic perspective.

Rating:
Summary: flight from civil rights to the new imperialism in the midea
Review: Ron Walters is a distinguished historian of race in America. In this book Walters presents an intelligible explanation for a phenomenon he chooses to call "White Nationalism." He refers mainly to the backlash against affirmative action and the ongoing attack on the 14th Amendment's application of equal protection and rights to historically discriminated groups. Walters manages to encompass "neoNazi crazies" and "Gingrichites"
within a single paradigm which denies the moral legitimacy of the claims of African-Americans for unfulfilled justice. Walters's paradigm is especially interesting when stretched to the post 9/11 new imperialism of America's special and exceptional mission to civilize the world. He sees this as a renewal of Kipling's call to Teddy Roosevelt to "take up the White Man's Burden" and extend our special virtues to the benighted of the Third World. The book is well document and by no means a simple screed or jeremiad from a liberal Democratic perspective.

Rating:
Summary: Ambitious, but falls short
Review: Walters undoubtedly identified some ongoing public policy problems in America, but he selectively ignores others. I am empathetic to most of his argument, but wonder why he had not devoted more time to critiquing the 'centrist' Democratic Leadership Council for also being conservative.

Blacks have become almost solidly Democratic voters since the 1960's, but constructive criticism of 'friends' is always important to effective policymaking. Bill Clinton's signature of 'welfare reform' and welfare's post-war blatant racial stereotyping as a haven for black 'baby machines' should have waranted more pointed critique from this very text.

It is oddly silent on this and other issues where the Democratic Party moved to the right, in an attempt to siphon off the 'Gingrich Revolution' of 1994.

His book also is problematic because he does not (as other scholars from Gloria Anzaldua to Dorothy Roberts have done) recognize that one's public policy experiences intersect with MULTIPLE idenities. A black low-income lesbian woman with disabilities has a much different social experience than a rich white heterosexual able-bodied man or even a black heterosexual man without disabilities. It it currently impossible to lump 'black people' and 'white people' together into one hedgemonic group as he apparently did throughout the book.

Because we live in an era of Alan Keyes and Condoleeza Rice, I also wish there was information on the apparent paradox posed by Black conservatives. I don't personally have to like their policies to recognize the challenge to Walter's thesis; some individuals are both conservative AND black. Hopefully future editions of this book will address that area's inherent sociopolitical complexity.