The Envy of the World : On Being a Black Man in America

Rating:
Summary: don't buy this book
Review: This is another defeatist visit to the sullen territory of identity politics. America is a country transitioning out of its racist past, but Ellis Cose and his fellow travelers do not recognize the sea change. To them, America is still in the grip of an unchanging, indefatigable racism, and blacks are its eternal victims. Cose's anecdotes are real enough, but the inference that there remains sufficient racism to keep black men down is false. For instance, when adjusted for regional differences, blacks in two-parent households earn the same as white two-parent households. This, then, is victimology, and Cose is a victocrat. The social wariness and paranoia vis-a-vis whites he would put into the hearts and minds of black readers would hold them back far more effectively than the vestiges of racism they may encounter. Read John McWhorter's revelation, Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America. He points the way to success and reconciliation; Cose is about victimology and separatism.