Race & Ethnicity
Essay: A Multicultural Nationalism?
Cross-national group loyalties can neither be wished away or erased. Yet the idea of the American nation is worth defending against multicultural attack. Herewith some ground rules for a culturally diverse nation.
Color-Blind Affirmative Action
If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, is social science the last resort of a losing cause? We may not know the answer for some time, but there’s no question that some of the heaviest hitters in the fight to preserve race preferences in college admissions are now desperately trying to convert the […]
Is He a Soul Man?
As Democrats’ most loyal constituency, blacks have rallied around the President during his political crisis, even (some argue) going so far as to confer on him honorary black status. Maybe blacks are selling their political capital too cheaply.
Moving From the ‘Hood: The Mixed Success of Integrating Suburbia
In theory, dispersing the poor to better suburban schools, jobs, and housing was a bipartisan alternative to housing projects and ghetto unemployment. But, surprise, nobody wanted them in the neighborhood.
State of the Debate: Indelible Colors
A book by two political theorists argues that new, cultural definitions of race can be as insidious as the old, biological ones.
State of the Debate: Who’s Afraid of Michael Jordan?
There’s no denying that blacks dominate basketball and other professional sports. But have whites rationalized black physical prowess only by equating it with mental deficiency?
Lingo Jingo
The story told by the English-only movement is nonsense from beginning to end. No language was ever less in need of official protection.
Controversy: The Black-White Test Score Gap
Claude M. Steele Some people who would like very much to right racial inequality will not like the idea, proposed by Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips, that reducing the black-white test score gap could be a prime target of public policy. African Americans have been hammered by this test score gap for decades. Focusing on […]
Hoop Schemes?
A White House congratulatory ceremony for a championship sports team is usually just a big, friendly photo opportunity, filled with the platitudes and gift exchanges typical of such an apolitical celebration. But in 1991, when the National Basketball Association (NBA) champion Chicago Bulls paid a visit to George Bush, Craig Hodges, then a backup guard […]
