Sex, Lies and Stereotypes: Perspectives of a Mad Economist

Malveaux seeks to reveal the relationships between economics and race, sex and politics in this collection of cogent columns syndicated in numerous papers, including USA Today and the San Francisco Examiner. What makes the writing fresh, and not the ramblings of an angry black woman, is her use of actual acquaintances to illustrate points. For example, Malveaux butresses her criticisms of the misguided economic priorities that resulted in the failure of urban schools with the story of a teacher friend worn down by low pay, job instability and hardened students. Malveaux's short pieces tackle Anita Hill, homelessness, Lani Guinier, NAFTA, conservatism, Clarence Thomas, speech codes and multicultural programs. Although the columns cover a variety of topics from AIDS to recycling to ``buying black,'' her perspective is primarily economic. It is this approach which makes for redundancies in several chapters-especially the first two. But the flip side is that she makes (or re-makes) a strong argument for the economic basis of the American struggle over race and gender. (Sept.)