Black Lies, White Lies: The Truth According to Tony Brown

Like a series of talk shows (the author hosts Tony Brown's Journal on PBS), this somewhat disjointed book raises both interesting and half-baked ideas, with no one topic fully developed. Brown's basic theme on race relations is sound: blacks shouldn't expect whites to rescue them, but whites must also see that their fate is linked to that of all fellow Americans. A prominent black Republican, Brown has harsh and sometimes appropriate criticism of black leaders, but he undermines his case with a broad-brush assessment of the black community (which he divides into four ``tribes'') and exaggerated references to black leaders' support for (and America's drift to) ``socialism.'' Also, Brown argues that AIDS is misidentified and connected mainly to drug use, sees ``cultural diversity'' (defined vaguely) as a cure for institutional racism and proposes the Internet as a new frontier for black entrepreneurship. And he may run for president, riding an idea for self-help associations ``within electronically-linked neighborhoods.'' Author tour. (Oct.)