Rating: 
Summary: Slightly to the right of center look at race relations
Review: Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom's "America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible" charts a different course from many of the scholarly books written about racial relations in the United States today. The authors agree that the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s was a resounding success, opening many doors to African-Americans as a result of the systematic dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the South. This book is necessary, claim the authors, because the ideas that originally drove the civil rights movement have since drifted into dangerous terrain. According to this book, Martin Luther King's message of one nation where all people will be judged by their individual merits and not skin color has become a land where blacks and whites are once again moving into separate camps based on race. The introduction of affirmative action programs and other racial social policies does not solve divisive problems but instead creates new racial barriers. Moreover, media and civil rights proponents today discuss black problems as though that segment of the population has made little progress. The authors insist that there are still nagging difficulties to overcome, but that a "lack of analytic rigor" leads to false perceptions about how far blacks have actually risen in society. Therefore, the authors rely heavily on statistical tables, charts, and polls to prove their arguments.
The first section of "America in Black and White" outlines the history of the odious conditions blacks faced in the American South and the resulting rise of the civil rights movement. The Thernstroms describe southern society in all of its squalor: the crushing poverty faced by both whites and blacks, the lackluster drive towards industrialization that kept many members of the population toiling in fields and small towns, pathetic levels of state spending on education for blacks, and the biases of the criminal justice system. Relying heavily on Gunnar Myrdal's groundbreaking study of race in America, the authors correctly detail the host of social structures aligned against the African-American population. For example, blacks rarely received decent treatment in the legal system because police departments run by whites often failed to protect the black citizenry from criminals. Moreover, the legal system in the South considered crimes committed against blacks secondary to outrages perpetrated against white members of society. Subsequent sections of the book take an in depth look at black progress in various social arenas from the 1970s onward, arenas such as education, politics, law, crime, and many others.The absence of job opportunities, poor education, lack of protections in the courts, and segregation policies in the South led African-Americans to increasingly move north. The first migration came during World War I. A second, even larger migration occurred in the 1940s and 1950s. Blacks in the North did not have to deal with segregation, but did experience racism in housing and certain sectors of the job market. Better conditions in the northern states led to an increasing drive for an end to Jim Crow in the South. The authors argue that federal legislation destroying segregation in the 1960s also contained the seeds of future divisions. The Thernstroms see a sinister change of direction with the release of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's report on the black family in 1965. Moynihan's remedy for the problems faced by black citizens, echoed by Lyndon Johnson in a speech at Howard University the same year, moved beyond providing for equal opportunity to call for "equal results" as well. This argument indirectly endorsed the idea of affirmative action and social entitlement programs based specifically on race. For the authors, the problems inherent in this approach are clear: to formulate policy giving special treatment to one race is just as racist as passing laws subjugating specific races. Perhaps the most interesting section of "America in Black and White," and probably the most controversial, concerns the authors' claims that African-American social advancement was greatest immediately before the rise of the civil rights movement. During the 1940s and 1950s, the authors write, blacks surged forward in nearly all areas of American society. This growth was far from perfect, but in the arenas of education, economics, politics, and sports blacks saw remarkable gains. Almost half of the African-Americans who lived in poverty moved out of that classification during this period. Education levels for blacks, while lagging behind whites, still grew significantly compared to earlier eras in American history. This period also saw the integration of professional baseball and basketball, opening up an entirely new aspect of society to black advancement. African-Americans showed signs of vigor at the polls, as a court case outlawing white southern primaries and greater movement to the North allowed more blacks to vote than ever before. Obviously, there were still many problems to overcome: black wages still lagged behind white levels, education was still a problem, and the South still practiced vigorous discrimination against its black population. But African-Americans did make progress, and this chapter effectively illustrates that modern day claims about the complete lack of black improvement before the civil rights movements of the 1960s are patently false. The greatest problem with this analysis of black gains during the 1940s and 1950s is that it undercuts the need and influence of activism as a force for change. If African-Americans were achieving so much, why did the civil rights movement appear on the scene? It may well be a case of a segment of the population finding some success and quickly wanting more, thereby accelerating the growth and scope of that change. But the Thernstroms spend more time discussing the overarching factors-political, economic, and social-that contributed to two decades of growth instead of focusing on what everyday people were doing on a local level to bring about advancement. Following this argument to its logical conclusion makes a reader suspect that twenty years of gradual progress would have toppled Jim Crow laws without the assistance of any sort of social activism.
Rating:
Summary: Slightly to the right of center look at race relations
Review: Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom's "America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible" charts a different course from many of the scholarly books written about racial relations in the United States today. The authors agree that the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s was a resounding success, opening many doors to African-Americans as a result of the systematic dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the South. This book is necessary, claim the authors, because the ideas that originally drove the civil rights movement have since drifted into dangerous terrain. According to this book, Martin Luther King's message of one nation where all people will be judged by their individual merits and not skin color has become a land where blacks and whites are once again moving into separate camps based on race. The introduction of affirmative action programs and other racial social policies does not solve divisive problems but instead creates new racial barriers. Moreover, media and civil rights proponents today discuss black problems as though that segment of the population has made little progress. The authors insist that there are still nagging difficulties to overcome, but that a "lack of analytic rigor" leads to false perceptions about how far blacks have actually risen in society. Therefore, the authors rely heavily on statistical tables, charts, and polls to prove their arguments.
The first section of "America in Black and White" outlines the history of the odious conditions blacks faced in the American South and the resulting rise of the civil rights movement. The Thernstroms describe southern society in all of its squalor: the crushing poverty faced by both whites and blacks, the lackluster drive towards industrialization that kept many members of the population toiling in fields and small towns, pathetic levels of state spending on education for blacks, and the biases of the criminal justice system. Relying heavily on Gunnar Myrdal's groundbreaking study of race in America, the authors correctly detail the host of social structures aligned against the African-American population. For example, blacks rarely received decent treatment in the legal system because police departments run by whites often failed to protect the black citizenry from criminals. Moreover, the legal system in the South considered crimes committed against blacks secondary to outrages perpetrated against white members of society. Subsequent sections of the book take an in depth look at black progress in various social arenas from the 1970s onward, arenas such as education, politics, law, crime, and many others. The absence of job opportunities, poor education, lack of protections in the courts, and segregation policies in the South led African-Americans to increasingly move north. The first migration came during World War I. A second, even larger migration occurred in the 1940s and 1950s. Blacks in the North did not have to deal with segregation, but did experience racism in housing and certain sectors of the job market. Better conditions in the northern states led to an increasing drive for an end to Jim Crow in the South. The authors argue that federal legislation destroying segregation in the 1960s also contained the seeds of future divisions. The Thernstroms see a sinister change of direction with the release of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's report on the black family in 1965. Moynihan's remedy for the problems faced by black citizens, echoed by Lyndon Johnson in a speech at Howard University the same year, moved beyond providing for equal opportunity to call for "equal results" as well. This argument indirectly endorsed the idea of affirmative action and social entitlement programs based specifically on race. For the authors, the problems inherent in this approach are clear: to formulate policy giving special treatment to one race is just as racist as passing laws subjugating specific races. Perhaps the most interesting section of "America in Black and White," and probably the most controversial, concerns the authors' claims that African-American social advancement was greatest immediately before the rise of the civil rights movement. During the 1940s and 1950s, the authors write, blacks surged forward in nearly all areas of American society. This growth was far from perfect, but in the arenas of education, economics, politics, and sports blacks saw remarkable gains. Almost half of the African-Americans who lived in poverty moved out of that classification during this period. Education levels for blacks, while lagging behind whites, still grew significantly compared to earlier eras in American history. This period also saw the integration of professional baseball and basketball, opening up an entirely new aspect of society to black advancement. African-Americans showed signs of vigor at the polls, as a court case outlawing white southern primaries and greater movement to the North allowed more blacks to vote than ever before. Obviously, there were still many problems to overcome: black wages still lagged behind white levels, education was still a problem, and the South still practiced vigorous discrimination against its black population. But African-Americans did make progress, and this chapter effectively illustrates that modern day claims about the complete lack of black improvement before the civil rights movements of the 1960s are patently false. The greatest problem with this analysis of black gains during the 1940s and 1950s is that it undercuts the need and influence of activism as a force for change. If African-Americans were achieving so much, why did the civil rights movement appear on the scene? It may well be a case of a segment of the population finding some success and quickly wanting more, thereby accelerating the growth and scope of that change. But the Thernstroms spend more time discussing the overarching factors-political, economic, and social-that contributed to two decades of growth instead of focusing on what everyday people were doing on a local level to bring about advancement. Following this argument to its logical conclusion makes a reader suspect that twenty years of gradual progress would have toppled Jim Crow laws without the assistance of any sort of social activism.
Rating:
Summary: A Comprehensive Analysis of American Race Relations...
Review: Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom's book is the most comprehensive survey of American race relations that I have ever read. The authors present important new information about the positive changes and improvements in the lives of African-Americans as a whole. They go on to argue, with tons of statistics to back them up, that the perception of serious racial divisions in our country are outdated, exaggerated, and dangerous. The reason for this, they show, is political: "it nurtures the mix of black anger and white shame and guilt that sustains the race-based social policies implemented since the late 1960s." Proponents of this status quo are afraid that calling attention, for example, to the rapidly-growing black middle class, "... would invite public complacency and undercut support for the affirmative action regime." I was especially enthralled by the authors' analysis of the "War on Poverty" programs of the 1960's, particularly the expansion of welfare, and their horrifically negative effects on generations of black families since. Not only did the "War on Poverty" make things worse for the poor, but the expansion of welfare to include unwed women and children fostered a lifestyle of dependency and irresponsible behavior, and precipitated the downward trend in two-parent black families, that has left three generations of black Americans in dire straits ever since. Liberals, especially black liberals, are terrified of books like this, and rightfully so. This book undercuts the blacks-as-perennial-victims/American-society-as-forever-racist rhetoric that keeps the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons, with support from the liberal media, in business. Along with the works of John McWhorter, Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell, this books serves as a much-needed wake-up call on the issue of race; a cold dose of reality that no doubt makes most liberals cringe.
Rating: 
Summary: Read for the facts, not the conclusions.
Review: The Thernstrom's argument is based on two premises, first, that impersonal market forces have substantially improved blacks' socioeconomic status in the past, and therefore are also likely to do so in the future, and second, that there is little need for government antidiscrimination policy, beyond legal prohibitions of discrimination as in the Civil Rights act, because only a relatively small percentage of whites are racist. If you adopt these premises, their conclusion, that there is little need for explicit antidiscrimination policy, affirmative action, etc., follows logically. But both of their premises are suspect, in different ways. While there is little doubt, as they well document, that market forces--e.g., migration to the North and to cities--have helped blacks' socioeconomic status substantially, it by no means follows that this should automatically continue in the future. Second, in my experience, a substantial number of Americans are still explicitly rac! ist, and others of us may utilize racial stereotypes in, for example, making hiring decisions, even if we are well intentioned and would never do so intentionally. Then there is a case to be made for antidiscrimination policy which goes beyond legal prohibitions of discrimination. The great flaw of the book is not that the Thernstroms have a point of view, but that they don't put it right up front so we know what it is, and hence they don't consider the alternatives if the world doesn't operate the way they think it does. It makes a nice encyclopedia of racial progress and race relations over the past fifty years, but that's all.
Rating: 
Summary: Revisionist history at its best
Review: The Thernstroms have adopted an "historical approach" (if one wishes to call it that) which takes a selective parsing of factual and statistical data and manipulates it to further their own personal agenda. The evidence they gather, while superficially compelling to the unwary reader, is full of factual inaccuracies and half-truths. In short, the Thernstroms apparently believe that if you say something often enough and throw a few numbers in, then it has to be true. The Thernstrom's analysis of minority voting rights merely restates the same tired tune that Abigail Thernstrom sang in her 1987 book, Whose Votes Count? (which she answers -- black votes don't). The Thernstrom's methodology has been subject to widespread criticism in the academic community (for one rather stark example, see a piece that Pam Karlan and Peyton McCrary wrote entitled "Without Fear and Without Research"). To place the Thernstrom's discussion of race in the same category as Gunnar Myrdal's 1944 classic treatise is an afront to Myrdal and every other author who has rigorously examined the topic.
Rating:
Summary: Manipulative, Nasty and Hateful
Review: The Thernstroms pretend to be objective, but their racism becomes more evident the more you read. Yes, racism. The Thernstroms deeply believe that there is no more white racism in evidence in America - none! - and that black Americans are manipulating white guilt to get preferential treatment. They think that many of the social problems that plague black communities - joblessness, poverty, welfare, single-parent households, crime, drugs, etc. are attributable to rap music and the failure of blacks to get off their backsides and work. I recommend William Julius Wilson's _When Work Disappears_ instead - deals with many of the same issues without the simplistic, racist argument that black people are lazy and stupid. Bottom line: the Thernstroms often cite Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell as "leading authorities." Less conservative viewpoints are treated as foolish or moronic. If you're going to read a book about affirmative action, try one that treats both sides of the issue as intelligent. Make up your own mind - don't trust this book.
Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful and important book
Review: The Thernstroms' have done everyone a great favor by thoroughly examining the issue of race in as fair a treatment as any I've ever read. In todays political world race has become the Democratic partys' favorite topic for demogoguery. Rather than push for a legitimate understanding of issues like slavery and its demise, political leaders on the Left have continued to issue disinformation with the aid of a major media that supports their underlying ideology. In a quiet but understated way the authors have critically examined virtually every assertion and question about race in America and rendered an exceptionally accurate portrayal. The upshot of their research is that the Black community is better off today than they've ever been in American history. Not only does that situation continue to improve each year, but it leaves in the dust the plight of Blacks in Africa, South America, Central America, and the Carribean, ne everywhere else in the world. Only the intellectually blinkered can ignore this set of inescapable facts. In fact, what so astounds political moderates is the deep and unyielding capacity for self deception shown by the race mongers who should know better. I'm thinking of Mary Francis Berry and John Hope Franklin. For them it's always 1954. As such, they seem mired in an echo chamber with other rabble rousing leaders who in reality have continually sold lower and middle income blacks the proverbial hole-in-the-donut. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the topic of race and the history of the civil rights movement. It's all here.
Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful and important book
Review: The Thernstroms' have done everyone a great favor by thoroughly examining the issue of race in as fair a treatment as any I've ever read. In todays political world race has become the Democratic partys' favorite topic for demogoguery. Rather than push for a legitimate understanding of issues like slavery and its demise, political leaders on the Left have continued to issue disinformation with the aid of a major media that supports their underlying ideology. In a quiet but understated way the authors have critically examined virtually every assertion and question about race in America and rendered an exceptionally accurate portrayal. The upshot of their research is that the Black community is better off today than they've ever been in American history. Not only does that situation continue to improve each year, but it leaves in the dust the plight of Blacks in Africa, South America, Central America, and the Carribean, ne everywhere else in the world. Only the intellectually blinkered can ignore this set of inescapable facts. In fact, what so astounds political moderates is the deep and unyielding capacity for self deception shown by the race mongers who should know better. I'm thinking of Mary Francis Berry and John Hope Franklin. For them it's always 1954. As such, they seem mired in an echo chamber with other rabble rousing leaders who in reality have continually sold lower and middle income blacks the proverbial hole-in-the-donut. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the topic of race and the history of the civil rights movement. It's all here.
Rating:
Summary: Doesn't live up to promise
Review: The title is apt since bouth authors appear to see the world in black and white with little room for gray area. This is clearly evident in their thesis, "That which brings the races together is good; that which divides us is bad." A grand oversimplificiation, if you ask me. The questions is: unity at what cost to black Americans? While you cannot argue that black Americans have progressed greatly since the Jim Crow era, I do take issue that "the perception of serious racial divisions in this country is outdated - and dangerous", as the back cover states. Tell that to the unarmed blacks being killed across the country by white police officers and to the many blacks who can't get taxis in New York City. The Thernstrom's also contradict their own statistical data. They assert that the greatest gains achieved by blacks in the US came during the 1940's-1950's, before the civil rights movement. That may be true, yet thier own data shows that the average income of a black family today is still the same ratio as it was to whites in the early 1950's. Same for the unemployment rates of blacks, which have been around twice those of whites since 1954. While loading up on charts and graphs, they fail to get to the meat of the problem, which is "the system" (for lack of a better term) itself. The one which rewards blacks that mesh nicely with white culture (i.e. Michael Jordan) and labels outspoken blacks such as Allen Iverson as "bad role models" for our children, simply because he doesn't conform to the white Americans idea of what a black person (or any person) should act like. I'm not trying to say that Iverson is a good role model, but what has Michael Jordan ever done to help the cause of blacks in this country? Selling $... shoes (that cost about $... to make) to kids in the inner city, whose parents are struggling to get by, doesn't exactly qualify. This gets back to the whole unity thing, since the authors point to the Michael Jordan's and Vernon Jordan's of the world as proof of black success. Yet look at how Iverson is treated in the media and by the Philly PD and how Jordan got treated in the media after his gambling scandal and the message is obvious: talk like a white person, act like a white person, dress like a white person and you will be treated well. But the moment you start to act like that black kid from the street....kiss those endorsements goodbye. If you replace clean cut Kobe Bryant from the 'burbs with street tough Allen Iverson from the 'hood in this current rape case and you think the media would be treating this story just a little differently? I rest my case. But I digress. This book is a dichotomy, since it is interesing and thought provoking at times (especially the first six chapters) yet also flawed, biased, and based on illogical preconceptions. It is very easy for two well paid white professors who live in the mostly rich, white suburb of Lexington to write a 700+ page book essentially telling black America to stop their whining. It's another thing to get me to believe them.
Rating:
Summary: A Plea For Reason
Review: This book is a testament to the semi-forgotten ideals of individualism and racial brotherhood--based on our _individual_ identities. We need a new "civil rights" movement that defies racial categories. This book reminds me why we need to prevent a scenario like "Cry, The Beloved Country" by eradicating the false categories of "race" and "ethnicity."
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