A Common Destiny: Blacks and American Society

by Gerald D. Jaynes, Robin M. Williams, Cleo Qian

Book Overview

[A] collection of scholars [has] released a monumental study called A Common Destiny: Blacks and American Society. It offers detailed evidence of the progress our nation has made in the past 50 years in living up to American ideals. But the study makes clear that our work is far from over. ?President Bush, Remarks by the president to the National Urban League Conference

The product of a four-year, intensive study by distinguished...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0309039983
• ISBN13: 9780309039987
• Release Date: February 1990
• Publisher: National Academies Press
• Length: 624 Pages
• Weight: 2.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive Examination of American Racism

Book is an exemplary examination of American racism from the periods 1940 until 1990. Over the course of two generations, the book looks at the effect of racism as exhibited through a plethora of statistical databases and studies never relying on any single source to make a conclusion. None of their conclusions are astounding for the well read on undisorted historical truths regarding Black oppression in America. The book though is a salient resource for someone who is more fascinated with the conditions of Americans racism and the oppression of Blacks rather than the EXISTENCE of American racism and the oppression of Blacks. For a true scholar of Afrocentricity or similar ilk it will be redundant but exceptionally concise. Never a fascinating read, its brevity and the facility with which it nearly reads itself make it a sharp inclusion for any researcher's collection. The book is diplomatic though; it rarely makes a definitive statement even when the evidence clearly indicates such. By this I'm referring, amnogst others, to the section on criminal justice which is vaguely exculpatory and dismissive owing to the "complexity" of the justice system. Perhaps here is where the book is at its weakest for despite the disproportionate evidence indicating racial bias, the book seems to search for---at times---astronomically surreal explanations for racism in the criminal criminal justice system rather than just admit that it is FULSOME AND DERELICT. Moreover, the book seems to support racist ideology in victim blaming and negating its own conclusions from previous chapters. As such, an astutely critical mind must read the text, or any text for that matter, with an agnostic inquisitiveness taking nothing for granted. Still, nothing is perfect, and the book remains an excellent resource. If nothing, the bibiolography is a near-comprehensive roll call of the Black Studies canon.