Turning back : the retreat from racial justice in American thought and policy / Stephen Steinberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Steinberg, Stephen.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Race discrimination--Government policy.

Race discrimination.

United States--Race relations.

United States.

Race relations.

Race discrimination--Government policy--United States.

Affirmative action programs--United States.

Affirmative action programs.

Physical Description:

xi, 276 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Boston, Mass. : Beacon Press, 1995.

Summary:

Turning Back traces social science writing on race relations over the past half-century. Beginning with Gunnar Myrdal's classic, An American Dilemma, Stephen Steinberg shows how mainstream social science placed a liberal gloss on racism and failed to champion civil rights. Not until the racial crisis of the 1960s was there a willingness to confront racism "in all of its hideous fullness", and to place responsibility for the nation's racial problems on major political and economic institutions. During the post-Civil Rights era the focus of blame has again shifted away from societal institutions onto blacks themselves. Turning Back is a trenchant critique of this "scholarship of backlash". Steinberg challenges liberals as well as conservatives, blacks as well as whites, who have fueled the backlash and provided a spurious intellectual cover for gutting affirmative action and other policies designed to alleviate racial inequalities.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0807041106

OCLC:

32702144