The Race Card: White Guilt, Black Resentment, and the Assault on Truth and Justice

Essays on race--some cursory, some substantial--from the magazine Heterodoxy, published by prominent neo-conservatives Collier and Horowitz (The Rockefellers), make up this book. The authors' unapologetic perspective is clear: in Los Angeles and other big cities, ""the issue is not lawless white cops but remorseless black criminals."" While Collier and Horowitz dwell in their eponymous essay on the troubling fact that blacks commit a disproportionate share of crime, they ignore routine police harassment of blacks and care not to explore sociological explanations for crime. Similarly, an essay by Paul Mulshine that effectively dissects the case made by supporters of convicted killer Mumia Abu-Jamal ignores questions about the fairness of his trial. A one-time supporter of the Black Panthers, Horowitz apparently aims to atone: the book includes Kate Coleman's important reconstruction of the unsolved murder of Panther bookkeeper Betty Van Patter, and Hugh Pearson's account of the heckling he received from blacks unwilling to accept his research regarding the Panthers. In a section provocatively titled ""Afro-Fascism,"" contributors warn about some disturbing Afrocentric books used in high school curricula. Other essays take on academic bell hooks and columnist Clarence Page. While this book contains some useful and provocative criticism, the authors don't seem to recognize that the ""race card"" is still played regularly by whites, most notably in cases of false accusation (Susan Smith, Charles Stuart, etc.) (June)