Product Description

A comprehensive inquiry into the history, nature and meaning of racism. There is little agreement about what racism is, where it comes from and whether it can ever be eliminated. This book explore these questions while raising some controversial issues of its own.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #333413 in Books
• Published on: 1997-04-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 756 pages

Customer Reviews

you'll love it if you can see past the liberal dogmas
Although brash, he doesn't worry about offending anybody, Dinesh sees through the liberal dogma of equality of races. He points out that MLK's dream was of equality of opportunity, not of results, and diffrent races will have diffrent results in various areas of life. Blacks will excell at some things, Asians in others... One thing that this book, and the subsequent uproar it caused, drove home to me is the lack of freedom of speech on the issue of race. People wanted to boycott the publisher, and ostracize the author. They discredited the sources, without facing the issues Dinesh raises using those sources. Although I may not agree with his final solutions, and I realize he knowingly offended the easily offended (fine with me!), if you open the book with an open mind, even liberals can learn from, if not enjoy, "the End of Racism". Note that Dinesh explores, and finally rejects, the "Bell Curve" theory. Blacks are not biologically inferior, their culture, or certain aspects of it, are. Even if you hate the book try to get your hands on the videotape of his debate with B.U. Professor Glen Lorry.

Courageous, powerful, and profound to those who value truth
This work is a window into not just the multiculturalists agenda but their tactics. Failure to perform is an environmental constraint rather than a personal challenge. D'Souza is thorough beyond reproach and above all courageous in pursuing the truth in todays PC-environment. Those who still feel that the government can engineer a better world will not like (nor most likely read) this book! A must.

Excellent on the little questions, dubious on the big ones
It's ironic that liberal critics dumped so heavily on D'Souza, because he built his book around a series of assumptions about race that are straight from the liberal conventional wisdom on the subject. In fact, the parts of his book that liberals objected to most vehemently stem logically from his application of politically correct principles. Here are the disastrous assumptions that drained much of the value from a book so chock-full of information and intelligence about minor matters (e.g., his discussion of rational discrimination by cab-drivers is excellent). D'Souza's assumptions:

1. The word "racism" is still a useful and meaningful term. In contrast, I would suggest that "racism" has become to the 90's what "unAmericanism" was to the 50's: a smear word intended to shut off logical thought.

2. That whites invented racism. In contrast, I would suggest that favoring those who are genetically related to you, and disfavoring those who aren't is a human universal. Its origin lies in a form of natural selection called kinship selection, which encourages us to favor the reproductive success of our genes not only within our own bodies, but within the bodies of people we share those genes with. See William Hamilton or Richard Dawkins [The Selfish Gene] for the math.

3. That the definition of a "racist" is someone who believes there are genetic differences among the races. This is the exact equivalent of a 19th century bishop saying that the definition of a "sinner" is someone who believes humans are descended from apes. The question of genetic differences is an empirical issue, not a matter of faith. That people who are married to a member of another race very often believe in the importance of genetic differences should give anybody pause who tries to glibly equate racist and hereditarian.

4. That behavioral differences among races stem solely from cultural differences. Obviously, this culture-only dogma begs the question of where cultural differences came from. Also obviously, the evidence for genetic differences among races is overwhelming, as any honest man who watches sports on TV can testify. In fact, D'Souza provides an excellent summary of some of the evidence for the reality and significance of genetic differences ... then simply rejects it all with no more explanation that that it's "too suspect to count."

5. That because genetics counts for nothing, everything that's wrong with black society today is the result of black culture. This is what drove so many blacks and white liberals into frothing rages over the book. In contrast, a realist perspective would suggest a much more positive perspective on African-American culture. Much of what's distinctive about African-American culture is descended from West African culture, which is, from the Darwinian point of view of reproductive success, a rational adjustment to conditions prevailing in West Africa in ages past. Unlike in the cold north, where male hunters provided most of the food to survive the winter and thus wives were expensive, in West Africa most women could gather enough to feed themselves and their children year-round, making husbands into expensive luxuries, who had to justify themselves by being sexy. This economic fact of life allowed men to have more wives than was affordable in hunting-dependent climes. The affordability of having many wives increases the competition among men, which manifested itself both in fighting among men and in wooing of women via talk, song, dance, etc. (The African-American pimp-ho relationship is an extreme version of this.) The male losers in these struggles failed to pass on their genes, while the winners had lots of kids who would carry onward their genes for muscularity (useful in fighting other men), handsomeness, charisma and improvisational ability (useful both in becoming a leader of men, and in attracting women).

Thus, the economic situation inherent in West Africa became embedded over time in the genes, producing a race that's especially talented at physically competing against other men for women and in charming women. Thus, African-American culture is hardly the all-around bleak failure described by D'Souza, but is outstanding at producing personalities to fill many of the most popular roles in American society: athlete, entertainer, Army general, politician, preacher, plaintiff's attorney, etc. It's failings are largely the flip side of its successes. The high crime rate, for example, stems from the same high degree of masculinity, which makes African-Americans good soldiers and great athletes.

This is not to say that, for instance, today's high crime rate among blacks is permanent. It suggests, however, that solutions will have to be crafted that take into account black's higher degree of masculinity, and try to direct that potent energy into socially positive directions. That's why the highly masculine Army, for example, succeeds better at giving blacks the values they need to succeed than do do-gooder programs. Similarly, the black advantage over whites at mental improvisation (so visible in basketball, jazz, preaching, rap, etc.) suggests that blacks would tend to do best at jobs like sales where improvisatory ability and male charisma are most valuable.