Race Experts – How Racial Etiquette, Sensitivity Training & New Age Therapy Hijacked the Civil Rights Revolution - Hardcover

Lasch–quinn, Elisabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039304873X ISBN 13: 9780393048735

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co., 2001

Synopsis

This study looks at how America has capsized racial progress in the quest for self-esteem. Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn uncovers the hidden trajectory and terms of American thinking about race relations since the 1960s. Since the dismantling of segregation, intense anxiety has surrounded interracial encounters and a movement has arisen to engineer social relations through the specification of elaborate codes of conduct. Diversity training in business, multicultural education in schools and cross-cultural psychotherapy have created a world of prescriptions. Lasch-Quinn looks at the teachings of the self-appointed "experts" and offers an analysis of the origins of their ideas. Casting race primarily as an issue of etiquette or therapy, rather than of justice or equality, has had dire consequences for American life, diverting attention from the deeper problems of poverty, violence and continued inequality and discrimination. "Race Experts" illuminates how far away the pundits are from the issues that deserve their attention.

About this title

Review

In clear, hard-hitting English, Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn presents a well-reasoned and well-balanced analysis that exposes an insidious racket.--Eugene D. Genovese, author of A Consuming Fire [A]n essential primer, replete with eye-opening horror tales of political correctness.--Michael Meyers, Executive Director, New York Civil Rights Coalition [A]n unflinching look at the elaborated codes that govern racial exchanges and relations.--Jean Bethke Elshtain, author of Democracy on Trial

About the Author

Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn is the author of Black Neighbors (winner of the Berkshire Prize), professor of history at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, and a frequent contributor to The New Republic.

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 039304873X
• ISBN 13: 9780393048735
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288