Liberal Racism: How Liberals Got Race Wrong; How America Can Get It Right

It is no longer new for chastened white male progressives to call for universal values and class politics to trump race-based identity politics. (See Michael Lind's The Next American Nation or Todd Gitlin's The Twilight of Common Dreams.) So Sleeper, author of one of the first important post-liberal books on race, The Closest of Strangers, here seems a bit behind the curve; indeed, some of his criticisms of black nationalism are borrowed from post-nationalist authors such as Stanley Crouch and Gerald Early. This book, however, remains worthy in the tough-minded pleasure Sleeper takes in critiquing liberals who color-code racial interactions, casting all blacks ""as the bearers of disadvantage and aggrievement""; he describes Andrew Hacker (Two Nations) as condescendingly assuming black inferiority and white racism. Also interesting are Sleeper's profiles of Randall Kennedy and Glenn Loury, two black scholars struggling toward centrist views, one from the left, the other from the right. At other times, Sleeper hits a bit too hard: he rightly criticizes ""racial poseurs"" who don't acknowledge that ordinary folk gain from New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's tougher policing, but overreaches by accusing liberals of supporting Johnny Cochran-esque racially based jury appeals. Similarly, he criticizes minorities who defend the racially gerrymandered Voting Rights Act but optimistically assumes future racial-crossover voting without assessing creative voting-system alternatives (such as the cumulative voting proposed by Lani Guinier). Besides encouraging liberals ""to let race go"" and mentioning a few cross-racial, class-based alliances, Sleeper says too little about solutions. This book would have benefited from a focus beyond New York City, especially where racial questions range far beyond black and white, and from an assessment of the new movement toward mixed-race identity. First serial to Harper's; author tour. (July)