Nor do studies demonstrating that a quarter or more of young black males have some kind of criminal record prove a violent black disposition, since many of the offenses are for substance abuse and other nonviolent or even victimless crimes, while many of the violent crimes perpetrated by blacks are the work of a core group of recidivists who account for a disproportionately large share of the offenses. Why let "amateur statisticians" off the hook so lightly, when they really seem to be indulging in old-fashioned, ill-informed prejudice?
Many of D'Souza's points are based on disproportionality, which isn't the same thing as propensity. In arguing that the black middle class owes a large part of its existence to government, D'Souza reports that 24 percent of blacks work for the government, compared with 14 percent for whites. Furthermore, he writes, "state and local agencies which service a poor and predominantly black clientele, such as housing and welfare, employ substantial proportions of African Americans: 38 and 23 percent respectively."
This last point is advanced to prove that employed blacks have a vested interest in the continuation of government bureaucracy and the welfare state in a way that employed whites do not. But D'Souza's own data show that three-fourths of black workers are employed in the private rather than the public sector, and that most welfare bureaucrats are whites. Blacks do need to make more progress in private-sector employment and entrepreneurship, as D'Souza subsequently argues, but why exaggerate the point?
Sensitivity has become unpopular among conservatives today, especially among agents provocateurs on college campuses who, like the student activists of the 1960s, delight in challenging orthodoxy and "political correctness." But grace and manners have practical utility. They oil social interactions among human beings that would otherwise be full of scraping pistons and dangerous sparks.
D'Souza greatest failure in The End of Racism is that he has chosen a style of argument, even a set of chapter titles (e.g. "Uncle Tom's Dilemma: Pathologies of Black Culture"), that provokes rather than persuades. Call me politically correct, but I don't think there's anything wrong with sensitivity and prudence on matters of race. The issues are so complex, with so many raw nerves and historical grievances involved, that one cannot debate race matters in the same wonkish or clever way one might discuss capital gains taxes or medical savings accounts.
D'Souza has written a comprehensive and often entertaining literature survey about race in America today, but its breadth disguises a lack of depth. He knows who's who on the various sides of scholarly race debates, but exhibits little personal experience with blacks who aren't "pathological" or with honest-to-goodness white racists, who remain depressingly numerous, in my experience.
This past October, I attended a four-day seminar on human relations and leadership in which one participant, a talented and personable black dentist from nearby Fayetteville, North Carolina, broke down in tears recounting her academic experiences. She was always expected to perform worse than her white classmates, she said. Many of her black friends didn't understand or support her academic success or her decision to enroll in upper-level courses that were almost all-white. And some of her white co-workers and fellow students didn't take her many accomplishments seriously, attributing them to affirmative action rather than to her own efforts.
To this woman, struggling to deal with a set of complicated and heart-rending emotions, D'Souza has something to say in The End of Racism: You probably are where you are because of affirmative action. Your accomplishments do not, in fact, deserve to be taken seriously.
He describes a great deal of economic and social progress by blacks over the past three decades as essentially the result of quotas in education and employment. "Many middle-class blacks seem to realize very well that the reason they are in the middle or upper-middle class is because they are black," he writes. Few middle-class blacks, therefore, will agree to end racial preferences "when they know that it is race that helps to pay the mortgage." Even though D'Souza has important things to say about race and public policy, my black dentist friend, and others like her, aren't likely to listen because of his tendency to exaggerate and provoke. This is unfortunate, and hardly hastens the end of racism.
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