Waking from the Dream

Los Angeles Times correspondent Fulwood, a child of the post-civil rights generation black bourgeoisie, fluidly recounts his reluctant journey to a ""self-protective buppie cocoon."" In Charlotte, N.C., where he grew up, the young student was a ""Negro ambassador,"" but at college in Chapel Hill, he retreated into black solidarity when white students ""seemed indifferent to us as individuals."" As a journalist in Baltimore, Fulwood confronted institutional racism-especially in skewed coverage of the black community)-but also gained the opportunity for a psyche-shaking trip to South Africa. Further jobs in Atlanta and Washington convinced Fulwood of white editors' fundamental insensitivity to black concerns, forcing his recognition-as he was warned in South Africa-that middle-class status offers no protection from America's racial tensions. While Fulwood's withdrawal from integration is a necessary warning to white America, his view of newsroom affirmative action-which he sees as placing a racial stigma on often overqualified hires-suggests that the road toward healing will require much debate. Author tour. (Apr.)