An original and impressive presentation that does much to illuminate the current racial situation.
Lasch-Quinn (History/Syracuse Univ.) contends that the civil-rights movement has been hurt by its advocacy of diversity training, multicultural education, and other therapeutic programs that have failed to tackle the intractable problems of poverty and violence.
The author maintains that the movement, as represented by Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, appealed to the better angels of the American psyche. That movement, however, while once based “on a powerful set of moral and political premises,” has failed to achieve its goal of a “democratic nation able to transcended racial and other cleavages; a revived civic culture; and a truly humane social order.” The later generation of racial theorists, who assumed control of the movement in the years following King’s assassination, came out of an academic culture and were preoccupied with questions of individual growth, emotional health, and personal gratification (rather than political change based on law and morality). They confused rather than clarified discussion of race. Lasch-Quinn contends that the terms of the debate changed when the civil-rights coalition collapsed in the early 1970s, and she sees the development of the new approach as a response to powerful changes in both popular and academic culture. The vast expansion of psychotherapy in the late 20th century led to the adoption by activists of such therapy-based remedies as the Encounter movement and the T-Group (a racial identity theory that envisioned a separate “black psychology”). There was also the influence of New Age beliefs in “empowerment,” as well as the rise of “diversity training” (which has become a fixture in nearly 65 percent of US businesses) and “multicultural education” (with its emphasis on self-esteem). She concludes that the civil-rights movement has blundered by casting “racial oppression in terms of incorrect attitudes or estranged emotions,” thereby confusing the very points of contention and actually bringing on a resurgence of racism.
An original and impressive presentation that does much to illuminate the current racial situation.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-393-04873-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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