Volume 43, Number 7 · April 18, 1996
Far from the Promised Land
By George M. Fredrickson
Beyond Black and White: Transforming African-American Politics
by Manning Marable
Verso, 236 pp., $24.95
Killing Rage: Ending Racism
by bell hooks
Holt, 277 pp., $20.00
Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy
by Stephen Steinberg
Beacon, 276 pp., $25.00
The Trouble with Friendship: Why Americans Can't Think Straight About Race
by Benjamin DeMott
Atlantic Monthly Press, 214 pp., $22.00
A growing conviction that the United States faces a crisis in black-white relations has inspired several writers to revisit the race question in search of new perspectives and solutions. One of these, the Princeton political scientist Jennifer Hochschild, has written a major study of current public opinion that offers some grounds for hoping that racial equality and harmony can be achieved on the basis of a shared commitment to a set of traditional American values. In her well-documented study Facing Up to the American Dream,[1] she argues that most blacks and whites agree in principle that everyone in this society should have a fair chance to get ahead—in the words of President Clinton, 'If you work hard and play by the rules you should be given a chance to go as far as your God-given ability will take you.'
Review, 4908 words
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