Race Against Time
The Politics of a Darkening America
-
-
4.5 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
A Cold Civil War has engulfed the nation.
After a deadly pandemic, shocking incidents of police brutality, a racial justice crisis, and the fall of a dangerous demagogue, America remains more divided than at any time in decades. At the heart of this national crisis is the fear of a darkening America—a country in which there is no longer a predominant white majority.
As the Republican Party has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, its leaders have incited white Americans in a last-ditch race against time to stop the advance of a new, multiracial emerging majority. Keith Boykin, long time political commentator, has watched this white resentment consume the GOP over the course of a life in politics, activism, and journalism. He has also observed the divisions among Democrats, as white progressives have postponed demands for full racial equity, while Black voters have often been too forgiving of party leaders who have failed to deliver. America can no longer avoid its long overdue reckoning with the past, Boykin argues. With the familiarity of personal experience and the acuity of historical insight, Boykin urges us to fight racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia, and save the union, not just by making Black lives matter, but by making Black lives equal.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
CNN political commentator Boykin (Sex, Lies, and Denial in Black America) delivers an accessible breakdown of how systemic racism has contributed to today's political dysfunction. Contending that "the problem of racism in American politics transcends specific political parties and leaders," Boykin examines pre–Civil War compromises made to "prioritize peace between the states over justice for Black people," and describes white Northerners' rush to reconcile with the South after the war. By the late 1960s, Boykin argues, the Republican Party had planted its seeds "deep in the poisonous soil of white racial resentment," using tough-on-crime policies to appeal to white voters' "sense of racial superiority" and to stoke anger over Black advancement. Boykin also describes Bill Clinton's initiatives on racial issues as "more symbolic than substantive," argues that Barack Obama did not center Black concerns as much as Republicans feared he might, and casts Donald Trump's election as the "logical extension" of America's long history of "half-measures, symbolism, and cyclical moments of feigned reconciliation." Though many of Boykin's arguments are familiar, he has a firm grasp of U.S. history and enriches the narrative with reflections on his experiences as a gay Black man in American politics. The result is a persuasive diagnosis of America's social and political ills.
