Volume 38, Number 17 · October 24, 1991
Playing the Racial Card
By Andrew Hacker
Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes On American Politics
by Thomas Byrne Edsall, with Mary D. Edsall
Norton, 339 pp., $22.95
The Urban Underclass
edited by Christopher Jencks, edited by Paul E. Peterson
The Brookings Institution, 490 pp., $14.95 (paper)
Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby
by Stephen L. Carter
Basic Books, 286 pp., $23.00
The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society
by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Whittle Books, 91 pp., $11.95
Being 'white' in America no longer brings the deference or preferment that it did a generation ago. The reason is at least partly demographic: citizens of European origin now make up a smaller share of the population than at any time in the past. In fact, the proportion of blacks has gone up by only a few points, thanks to improved survival rates in infancy and longevity.[1] The big change has come from immigration, mainly from Latin America and Asia. As the accompanying table shows, the percentage of whites in California has fallen by almost twenty points in as many years.
Review, 5298 words
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