By John O. Calmore (Click here to view the entire P&R issue) While I think integration is possible, I nevertheless agree with Leonard Steinhorn and Barbara Diggs-Brown that “what it takes even to break the integration ice in our country is largely unpalatable to most of our citizens.” They make an important point in observing that “our professed attitudes, symbols, and … [Read more...] about “Viable Integration Must Reject the Ideology of ‘Assimilationism'” by John O. Calmore (November-December 1999 P&R Issue)
Symposium Responses
“An Integration Scenario OR Ending the Illusion” by Herbert J. Gans (November-December 1999 P&R Issue)
By Herbert J. Gans (Click here to view the entire P&R issue) I agree with virtually all of Steinhorn’s and Diggs-Brown’s analysis, but do not share their disappointment, since few of us who were around in the actual (rather than the now imagined) ’60s had any illusions or expected any miracles. Moreover, racial, and particularly residential, integration was then a … [Read more...] about “An Integration Scenario OR Ending the Illusion” by Herbert J. Gans (November-December 1999 P&R Issue)
“Now We Are Engaged in a Great Civil War, Testing Whether That Nation, Or Any Nation So Conceived and So Dedicated, Can Long Endure” by Howard Winant (November-December 1999 P&R Issue)
By Howard Winant (Click here to view the entire P&R issue) If Steinhorn and Diggs-Brown are correct that the elimination of Jim Crow did not really occur, then what did happen in the Civil Rights and post-Civil Rights era? By the Color of Our Skin sounds quite familiar, perhaps because there isn’t anything really new here. Many academics and activists have made … [Read more...] about “Now We Are Engaged in a Great Civil War, Testing Whether That Nation, Or Any Nation So Conceived and So Dedicated, Can Long Endure” by Howard Winant (November-December 1999 P&R Issue)
“The Morally Lazy White Middle Class” by Robert Jensen (November-December 1999 P&R Issue)
By Robert Jensen (Click here to view the entire P&R issue) The invitation to write this commentary asked for reaction to the “sadly dour view” on integration of Steinhorn and Diggs-Brown. Yet I don’t find the authors’ view sad or dour; their conclusion that racial integration is an illusion is honest and hopeful. Like the authors, it seems to me that the only hope of … [Read more...] about “The Morally Lazy White Middle Class” by Robert Jensen (November-December 1999 P&R Issue)
“A Wake-Up Call for Liberals” by Richard D. Kahlenberg (November-December 1999 P&R Issue)
By Richard D. Kahlenberg (Click here to view the entire P&R issue) Leonard Steinhorn and Barbara Diggs-Brown make a compelling case that integration remains an illusion, and for that reason, the book is a powerful antidote to the happy talk of conservatives who tend to emphasize only the progress that we have made. But the authors’ sobering evidence on the state of race … [Read more...] about “A Wake-Up Call for Liberals” by Richard D. Kahlenberg (November-December 1999 P&R Issue)
