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Race Matters by Cornel West
Summary
Race Matters by Cornel West is a book which peeks into the new meaning of black conservatism in America. It gives us a glimpse of how racial discrimination was defined earlier and how it is defined today in the modern world. At the beginning, the author talks about several works by famous authors who wrote about the black community. Thomas Sowell’s Race and Economics is an aggressive black intellectual conservative assault on the traditional liberal idea of blacks. The Pittsburgh Courier by George S. Schuyler and the letters of the famous Afro-American woman Zora Neal Hurston were both classics which spoke of racial discrimination. The new definition of black conservatism was due to the rise of Reaganism and the collapse of left parties which created a gap in the voices of the conservatists.
Free at Last by Christian Glenn Loury, a friend of West, is a book in which the author throws light on the fact that the blacks were the ones responsible for their own degradation and discrimination. According to Loury, blacks blamed the whites for their failure. They were too loyal to the black community and that they failed to see the discrepancies and mutual responsibilities of one another. Loury also points that the real truth was truncated and only censored perspectives were presented before the black masses. Loury also blames black liberals of being very adversary to the stance of the rest of the country.
According to West, Loury’s halfway house position between Sowell’s conservatism and traditional black liberals was due to three reasons: the upper hand of Americans over their economy, the change in the structure of the Americans over this economy and the moral breakdown of communities like the black working poor and very poor. When there were other emerging countries like Japan and West Germany, America was facing an economic slowdown. This had a devastating affect on the black community when survival of the black poor became difficult. But the middle class blacks were being elected as high-rank officials who started attacking contemporary national programs. They demanded peer approval and recognition of their talents and skills, rather than discrimination on the basis of their color.
The new black conservatives have good knowledge of America’s role in supporting the oppressed throughout the world. This made them stand against America’s foreign policies. With decline of industrial jobs, the black communities were facing a severe setback in job opportunities. Deindustrialization of several states and entry of immigrants have added to their misery. These economical aspects have been rightly highlighted by the new black conservatives. Other factors such as high crime rates and relative academic incompetence also contribute to their drawbacks. West also stresses that these factors contributed to black unemployment and therefore created unrest in the black community. It could be seen that the new black conservatives needed a new life which spoke of moral upliftment and new opportunities for the black community. New programs, multiracial alliances and solutions need to be implemented; programs which would look at every aspect of the black community. This would bring about a huge change in eliminating black poverty.
Google Scholar Question
Q) What is the status of the black community in the U.S. today?
Ans) In the article, The ironic consequences of Obama’s election: Decreased support for social justice by Kaiser et al, we get an insight of the current status of the black community in the U.S. The research conducted a survey among U.S residents and found that the victory of Obama was an inspiration for the entire black community and that anything can be achieved through hard work, irrespective of whether he is a black or a white. Having said this, the other side of the story is that after Obama became the President, importance to racial inequality issues may not be given importance at all as they may not be important then. This would decrease policies pertaining to racial inequality. The survey also speaks of racial progress since Obama has come into power. But the ratio of blacks and whites regarding matters of poverty, education, incarceration etc. has not changed considerably in the past years, as racial disparity can still be seen in the American society even today.
Work Cited
Kaiser, Cheryl R., et al. “The Ironic Consequences of Obama’s Election: Decreased Support for
Social Justice.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. (2009). Web. 5 Apr 2016.
