Liberal Racism : How Fixating on Race Subverts the American Dream

Jim Sleeper discusses what liberals need to do to return their political movement to the vital centre. This text reawakens the debate surrounding race and ethnicity and challenges us to transcend race, to reject foolish policies that have only reinforced racial divisions.

Liberalism seems poised for a renewal, but its chances for creating a visionary program for the next century are jeopardized by racial contradictions and confusions that continue to appear in its social policy. Instead of the colorblind society once promised by the left, we inhabit a country seething with racial resentments. With uncompromising clarity, Jim Sleeper discusses what liberals need to do to return their political movement to the vital center. Along the way, Sleeper punctures liberal pieties to reveal politicians and journalists still stymied by race, impotent in the face of conservative racism, and paralyzed by a guilt that neither advances social justice nor helps fashion a common American identity. Jim Sleeper challenges us to transcend race, to reject the foolish policies and attitudes that have only reinforced racial divisions, and to weave a social fabric sturdy enough to sustain the values upon which this country was founded. Now available in paperback with a substantial new introduction, Liberal Racism: How Fixating on Race Subverts the American Dream is sure to reawaken and re-energize the debate surrounding race and ethnicity.