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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 342.087 EAN: 9780465098248 ISBN: 046509824X Label: Basic Books Manufacturer: Basic Books Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 384 Publication Date: May 15, 1997 Publisher: Basic Books Studio: Basic Books Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: When affirmative action emerged in the 1960s, it was part of a larger quest to achieve real equal opportunity and integration throughout American society. According to Center for National Policy fellow Richard D. Kahlenberg, the original purpose of affirmative action changed during the 1970s, from "racial preferences as a temporary bridge to color-blindness" to "racial preferences as a permanent way of life." Kahlenberg is one of a growing number of observers who believe that affirmative action should be based on economic need rather than race. In this carefully argued book, he looks at the current state of affirmative action and explores the implications of his proposal for race and economic relations in the United States. Product Description: In this provocative and paradigm-shifting book, Richard D. Kahlenberg argues that affirmative action programs ought to be based not on race but on class. America’s exclusive focus on race in determining how to allocate economic and educational opportunities has served only to undermine the moral legitimacy of affirmative action, the results clearly visible in the growing public sentiment to abolish such programs.Kahlenberg shows that it is time to return to affirmative action’s roots, so that it works to the benefit of the truly disadvantaged, regardless of race. In a sweeping and damning analysis, Kahlenberg examines how the rationale for affirmative action has moved inexorably away from its original commitment to remedy past discrimination and instead has become a means to achieve racial diversity, even if that means giving preference to upper-middle-class blacks over poor whites. He outlines how a class-based system of affirmative action would work, why all Americans should embrace it, and how the African-American community in particular would continue to reap the benefits it needs without engendering resentment among whites. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - A "progressive" book with conservative implicationsIn order to alievate tensions between working-class whites on one side and African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans on the other, Kahlenberg calls for replacing race-based programs with class-based programs. His assumption: it'll bring the white working class into a liberal coalition, and disproportionately help African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans because they're disproportionately poor. The problem is that 1.) Kahlenberg fails to understand the dynamics of race and class in ... Read More Rating:  - It's what King and Kennedy wanted......and I suppose, for some, that automatically means that we should not want it now. Such persons may also be of the view that "all black folk need to do, is change their culture and get jobs". For the rest of us living in the real USA, it is patently clear that race, poverty, and government (specifically public policies dealing with these issues) will always be with us, whether we like it or not. It is against this background, that THE REMEDY is offered. Its very name is offered as a ... Read More Rating: - Biased in favor of affirmative actionInadequate fact and value analysis of the interests at stake. Author wants to substitute class quotas in place of racial quotas. Results would be the same: unfair, divisive, unworkable. An example of Justice Holmes' statement that, "It is one thing to think from a protected cloister; it is another to think for action upon which great interests depend". Author should climb down from his ivory tower and get a real job. 
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