Transcending Racial Barriers: Toward a Mutual Obligations Approach

I thought maybe this book would have real solutions to the plight of the black community today, but it was a big waste of $25. It reads like a Master's Thesis in a Liberal College. Once again, these authors, like so many of the "new sociology" texts of race theory, divide the world into two parts - White and Non-White, which is absurd. This is a country of many colors and blends.Much of the book is based on a study by the authors of what are the common values of Americans. They claim there are not any essential common American values across races, nothing that ties us together. But carefully notice the parameters of the study - it is based on a Sample Group of 101 people - 35 of them black. The fact that 35 of the black people they know don't value American Freedoms as something important to them is not a surprise - they probably found these people on a liberal college campus. But this does not reflect the values of a large portion of the black community, that is proud of how hard their ancestors have fought to have equal legal standing with the rest of Americans. And they are grateful to live in this country that gives them more freedom to succeed than any other country in the world.How absurd is this: after all the fights in the 60's to eliminate segregation, this book suggests that public schools should become segregated again - into Muslim, Christian, Black, Hindu, etc. They suggest that government should decide what basic values should be taught - not to commit crime is their example - but each school should teach the concept with it's own values, like Quranic principle, karma, yin/yang, Biblical principle. What? Why not just use vouchers for private schools? How would you ever district these public schools fairly? At the beginning of the book they complain about school districts not being determined in a fair method to make them more multi-racial, and by the end of the book, they want segregated schools.Another craziness - we also fought for years as a nation to make our laws blind to race, creed, sex. Now these authors want every law passed to be evaluated by a whole group of committees - one for each race in the community - to evaluate the impact of the law on each race, similar to Environmental Impact Studies. Then the committees have to form a super committee to work out a law that impacts them all equally. Equal positive and negative effects, give and take. It seems like we need less emphasis on dividing up into races, not more. These people really just want more race wars. Instead, we just need to focus on laws that are RIGHT because they are natural law, built out of mutual respect for each other's person's and property, and their word when they execute contracts.

This book is important in part because it offers what I think is an intimation of a post-postmodern (or metamodern) approach to identity politics. We desperately need more people to help us push through and beyond the culture wars of traditional, modern, and postmodern approaches to racism/anti-racism, and this book represents a move in that important direction. It is dry and a bit slow and academic, but the nuggets of wisdom are real.

Well written

A good follow-up to Divided by Faith, offering solutions to identified problems.

Bought for my daughter's college class. It did the job.

Emerson and Yancey provides an excellent vision for 'us' to address our challenges of creating a just nation for us all.

As described.

Excellent book. It should be more widely read and promoted.