Three widely discussed works are helping to heat up the debate about race again. But the limits of a politics of racial conscience should be all too apparent.
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Posted inEconomic Policy
Why Save the Banks? The Ambivalent Liberal’s Guide to Reform
Liberals may find it difficult to muster sympathy for bankers, but there are compelling reasons to strengthen banking. Reforms should help restore the banks’ profitability, while coupling new powers with stronger supervision to curb abuses.
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Dubious Conceptions: The Controversy Over Teen Pregnancy
Reports of “babies having babies” have set off alarms of a teen pregnancy epidemic. But the link between poverty and single parenthood is more complex than is often alleged.
Posted inCivil Rights in America
The Fire This Time
Up against the smoldering violence and passions of the inner city, the journalist, the novelist, and the sociologist skilled in field work give us three very different perspectives on race and urban life today.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Can Business Beat Bureaucracy?
Attacks on bureaucracy have typically come from outside the corporate world; now they are coming from inside it. Are the business critics and reformers serious? Is American business really undergoing an internal transformation?
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Racism and Race-Conscious Remedies
An exchange on whether American social and economic policy should emphasize special programs for blacks and other racial minorities or a more universal approach aimed equally at disadvantaged whites.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
The Reconstruction of Rights
Too many Americans today think of rights solely as limiting their obligations to others and responsibilities as citizens. But rights, rightly understood, flourish only when democracy flourishes, too.
Posted inAmerica and the World
Collateral Gains
Even before the jubilation in Kuwait City died down — indeed, even before the Gulf War ended in a decisive allied victory — many who warned that the war would go badly were warning that the war’s aftermath would go badly. That is a safe prediction. No one has ever won a nickel betting on […]
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Racism and Race-Conscious Remedies
An exchange on whether American social and economic policy should emphasize special programs for blacks and other racial minorities or a more universal approach aimed equally at disadvantaged whites.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Uneasy Case for a National Law on Abortion
Congressional action may be the one way to preserve the right to abortion nationwide. But for advocates of choice, enacting legislation will mean making some strategic compromises.