The Ordeal of Integration: Progress and Resentment in America's "Racial" Crisis

Patterson, Orlando; Orlando Patterson

ISBN 10: 1887178619 / ISBN 13: 9781887178617

Published by Civitas/Counterpoint, Washington, D.C., 1997

About this Item

233 pp. An excellent, spotlessly clean copy! Clean, fresh, sharp, tight, essentially and virtually flawless copy with crisp pages, clean text, and very light shelf wear. No dust jacket.

Seller Inventory # 1iiFd0007

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Ordeal of Integration: Progress and Resentment in America's "Racial" Crisis
• Publisher: Civitas/Counterpoint, Washington, D.C.
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1887178619
• ISBN 13: 9781887178617
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Caesar Jackson (Illustration)
• Condition: Like New
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • American Studies, History, Politics & Culture
  • US Politics & History, Amer. Presidency
  • Academic, Scholarly, Research

About this title

Synopsis

In this provocative new book, sociologist Orlando Patterson takes on the intractable dilemma of race in late 20th-century America. Using current demographic research, Patterson exposes common misperceptions about the lives and experiences of black and white Americans, misperceptions that are hampering the success of integration.

Reviews

Patterson (sociology, Harvard), the author of the prize-winning Freedom in the Making of Western Culture (LJ 7/91), draws on current social science research to investigate the "paradoxes" of race relations in the United States. One is that black living standards are generally rising even as the news media uniformly depicts blacks as poor inner-city residents. Another is that race relations are said to be worsening at a time when increasing numbers of respondents tell pollsters that they have friends and co-workers from other races. Yes, some blacks are part of an "underclass," says Patterson, and a sizable minority of whites remain steeped in racist thought. But it is "irresponsible to overplay" the grim news. "An unholy alliance of conservative, law-and-order hard-liners, sensationalist media producers, and Afro-American race leaders all have vested interests in exaggerating the degree to which the underclass has infected both the broader Afro-American population and the nation at large." Critical of both the mainstream Civil Rights movement and the conservative counter-establishment, Patterson adopts a maverick position that combines support for affirmative action and an activist government with a rejection of various forms of nationalism or democratic socialism. Recommended for larger libraries.?Kent Worcester, Marymount Manhattan Coll., New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.