Race and the Conservatives

The End of Racism is an ambitious book. It seeks to demonstrate that liberal policies and the culture and behavior of African Americans, rather than racism, lie at the root of black Americans’ problems. It attempts to dismantle pragmatism and cultural relativism, central elements of twentieth-century thought, in favor of the nineteenth- century idea that cultures exist within a fixed hierarchy ranging from savage to civilized, atop which sits Western civilization. It tries to rewrite American history by demonstrating that slavery and segregation were far less racist and oppressive than is generally supposed.

The scope of the book’s ambition is matched only by the extent of its failure. Its account of history is misleading, its discussion of world cultures sophomoric, its analysis of current race relations simplistic. Beneath a façade of reasonableness, The End of Racism is a mean-spirited polemic whose constant allusions to “failure,” &#...