White Nationalism, Black Interests: Conservative Public Policy and the Black Community

by Ronald W. Walters

Book Overview

A study of the most racially conscious aspect of the Conservative movement and its impact on politics and current public policy.

The rise of the Conservative movement in the United States over the last two decades is evident in current public policy, including the passage of the Welfare Reform Act, the weakening of affirmative action, and the approval of educational vouchers for private schooling. At the same time, new rules on congressional...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814330207
• ISBN13: 9780814330203
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Extremely important account of US politics from late 70's through beginning of the George W. Bush Ad

My chief reason for writing something here is to counter the astonishingly misleading review that is described as "the most helpful critical review." Perhaps astonishing is too strong: if you review a book you have not read, your description will be predictably wide of the mark. Professor Walters' book is one of the best accounts available of the policy continuities between the Reagan/Bush I/Gingrich years on the one hand and the Clinton administration on the other. This is to be expected from a political scientist and public intellectual who has produced the other major works and volume of widely cited commentary that Professor Ronald W. Walters has (not to be confused with the historian Ronald E. Walters). The claim that this book "is oddly silent on... issues where the Democratic Party moved to the right, in an attempt to siphon off the 'Gingrich Revolution' of 1994" is breathtakingly false. This preposterous assertion exploits potential readers' unfamiliarity with the contents of the book. I suppose there is a weird kind of democracy in that, since the reviewer also is unfamiliar with the book, and in the real world people talk about books they pretend to have read all the time. But in a review written for potential readers it is close to malicious. For those concerned about the supposed deficiencies mentioned, I suggest they begin with chapter 4, "New Democrat Politics and Policy Convergence," and then read the four chapters that follow, treating specific policy areas ("The Deregulation of Civil Rights," "The Attack on the Black Poor," "Criminalizing a Race," and "Attacking Black Access to Education"). The reader can then go back to the opening chapters, which provide conceptual clarifications regarding White Nationalism, the post 1970s dismantlement of the public sector and destruction of public goods, processes to which Walters attaches the important concept, "devolution." However, if, like the negative reviewer, you want to stop the presses in order to share the late breaking news that "some individuals are both conservative AND black"; or if you fervently "wish there was information on the apparent paradox posed by Black conservatives" or think their existence somehow poses a "challenge to Walter's thesis," then I would suggest you read the chapter that follows chapter 8 -- the one entitled, "Black Conservatism: White Interests," and THEN go back to the three opening chapters. The only conceivable explanation for the negative reviewer's absolute ignorance about Professor Walters' book is that in the bookstore or library she skimmed a page of the index (the index shows only a few pages referring to the Democratic Leadership Council, although two columns worth of material on Clinton, the former head of the DLC). She cannot have glanced at even the Table of Contents. White Nationalism: Black Interests is one of the best accounts available of the upper class driven but race-wrapped reactionary offensive that gr

Excellent!

This is an extremely well written analysis of how American policy is designed to keep African Americans eternally at the bottom. Walters does a tremendous job of breaking down the Reagan years and connecting the dots to today. It's clear that the main thing keeping Blacks in a reactionary state is a lack of information. I wish that WBAI (The Global Black Experience show in particular) would contact Mr. Walters about possibly doing a weekly commentary. His insights are necessary to the survival of the least informed group in the country.

flight from civil rights to the new imperialism in the midea

Ron Walters is a distinguished historian of race in America. In this book Walters presents an intelligible explanation for a phenomenon he chooses to call "White Nationalism." He refers mainly to the backlash against affirmative action and the ongoing attack on the 14th Amendment's application of equal protection and rights to historically discriminated groups. Walters manages to encompass "neoNazi crazies" and "Gingrichites"within a single paradigm which denies the moral legitimacy of the claims of African-Americans for unfulfilled justice. Walters's paradigm is especially interesting when stretched to the post 9/11 new imperialism of America's special and exceptional mission to civilize the world. He sees this as a renewal of Kipling's call to Teddy Roosevelt to "take up the White Man's Burden" and extend our special virtues to the benighted of the Third World. The book is well document and by no means a simple screed or jeremiad from a liberal Democratic perspective.