Volume 40, Number 3 · January 28, 1993
The Blacks & Clinton
By Andrew Hacker
Paved with Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America
by Jared Taylor
Carroll and Graf, 416 pp., $22.95
A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character
by Charles J. Sykes
St. Martin's, 289 pp., $22.95
Children of the Dream: The Psychology of Black Success
by Audrey Edwards, by Dr. Craig K. Polite
Doubleday, 287 pp., $21.50
Cool Pose: The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America
by Richard Majors, by Janet Mancini Billson
Lexington, 144 pp., $19.95
Deadly Consequences: How Violence Is Destroying Our Teenage Population and a Plan to Begin Solving the Problem
by Deborah Prothrow-Stith, with Michaele Weissman
HarperCollins, 269 pp., $12.00 (paper)
Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism
by Derrick Bell
BasicBooks, 222 pp., $20.00
Putting People First: How We Can All Change America
by Governor Bill Clinton, by Senator Al Gore
Times Books, 232 pp., $7.99 (paper)
Now no less than in the past, Americans of African ancestry remain haunting presences. They are viewed variously as a dilemma, a threat, an inconvenience, an impetus for anger, a cause for guilt and shame. America has known how to cope with immigrants, seldom welcoming them, but at least allowing that they serve a function, usually as cheap and acquiescent labor. Slaves were brought here for a not dissimilar purpose. Since Emancipation, however, the nation has never been of one mind about the place and status of their descendants.
Review, 4421 words
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