Description
Book SynopsisIn a climate where whites who criticize affirmative action risk being termed racist and blacks who do the same risk charges of treason and self hatred, a frank and open discussion of racial preference is difficult to achieve. But, in the first book on racial preference written from personal experience, Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby, Stephen L. Carter, Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale University and self-described beneficiary (and, at times, victim) of affirmative action, does it.Using his own story of success and frustration as an affirmative action baby as a point of departure, Carter, who has risen to the top of his profession, provides an incisive analysis of one of the most incendiary topics of our day,as well as an honest critique of the pressures on black professionals and intellectuals to conform to the politically correct way of being black.Affirmative action as it is practiced today not only does little to promote racial equality, Carter argues, but also allow
Table of Contents* On Being a Black Intellectual On Being An Affirmative Action Baby * Racial Preferences? So What? * The Representative of the People * The Best Black * Racial Justice on the Cheap On Being A Black Dissenter * Silencing Dissent * On Contenting Oneself with Silence * Why Black Conservative Is Pejorative * Silencing Doubt On Solidarity And Reconciliation * The Special Perspective * Special But Equal * Racial Solidarity and the Black Intellectual
