April 13, 2020
In this rich, meditative account, novelist Baker (Grace) identifies the current “backlash of white bigotry” following the election of the first African-American president as a moment of national reckoning akin to the Continental Congress, the Civil War, and the civil rights movement. In the process of examining why and how those earlier opportunities to “escape from the original sin and eternal problem of race” by fully integrating blacks and other minority groups into American society fell short, Baker offers a wide-ranging and erudite analysis of U.S. history, politics, and culture—from the arrival of the first slave ship at Port Comfort, Va., in 1619 to discriminatory policies built into FDR’s New Deal and an interracial adoption story line on the TV show This Is Us. He critiques identity politics (“my grievance versus your grievance”) on both the right and the left, and accuses liberals of preserving racist power structures by reaching compromises with white supremacists in order to advance piecemeal progressive reforms. Though Baker doesn’t make the mechanisms for “extend the full social contract” to African-Americans clear, he paints an incisive picture of the gaps—in wages, education, life expectancy, and criminal justice—that he says need to be closed in order for the promise of democracy to be fulfilled. This powerful call to action resonates.
Starred review from April 15, 2020
An impassioned analysis of America's failure at racial integration as a failure of democracy. Decades after the many successes of the civil rights movement, why hasn't America dismantled racism? According to Baker, a novelist who has taught at a variety of universities, it's because we've never employed the only real solution to the problem: integration. The author argues that integration is "the most radical, transformative idea in US politics," once properly understood, and he endeavors successfully to deliver that understanding. This is not an easy task considering that many Americans are invested in the systems that "perpetuate racism," but Baker provides plenty of illuminating examples to bolster his argument: A company hires diversity consultants but won't diversify its C-suite. We want to end the national crisis of school desegregation, but we shrink from the idea of busing. Baker defines integration as full rights of self-determination and participation for all black Americans and other groups historically excluded by race, "in every facet of national life." A gifted storyteller, the author writes with the urgency of what's at stake--i.e., the very survival of our democracy. Denying black people rights has been the "flaw in the design of America we have been struggling to resist" for 400 years, and Baker dissects critical junctures in the nation's history when integration could have ameliorated racism, from the Continental Congress through the election of the first black president. He offers incisive analysis on a variety of topics, including politics, sports, gentrification, and pop culture, and he examines such pivotal figures as Shakespeare, Frederick Douglass, the Black Panthers, Public Enemy, and Colin Kaepernick. Scholarly yet accessible, this book is a wake-up call for a country that would rather celebrate how far we've come than focus on how far we still have to go to eradicate racism. Required reading for any American serious about dismantling systemic racism.
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