Book Review: The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse
by Richard Thompson Ford
Publication Date: Jan 22, 2008
List Price: $26.00
Format: Hardcover, 400 pages
Classification: Nonfiction
ISBN13: 9780374245757
Imprint: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
Parent Company: Holtzbrinck Publishing Group
Read a Description of The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse
Book Reviewed by Kam Williams
’Almost all Americans agree that racism is wrong’ But a lot of people also worry that the charge of racism can be abused. We can all think of examples: Tawana Brawley’ Clarence Thomas’ and of course there’s O.J. Simpson’ Ever since the acquittal of O.J, the idea that race is a ’card’ to be played for selfish advantage has become commonplace’
The Race Card will examine the prevalence of dubious and questionable accusations of racism and other types of bias’ The term ’racism’ is in a state of crisis’ Self-serving individuals, rabble-rousers, and political hacks use accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia and other types of ’bias’ tactically, to advance their own ends [while] people of goodwill may make sincere claims that strike others as obviously wrongheaded.’
’Excerpted from the Introduction (pages 6-7, and 36)
Was it fair for a billionaire like
Oprah Winfrey to cry racism when
an upscale store refused her admittance, unaware that she was a
celebrity? How about Michael Jackson’s undergoing a series of cosmetic
surgery procedures to turn himself white only to later conveniently
reclaim his blackness when he wanted to allege that his record company
had treated him like a slave?
Clarence Thomas successfully squelched further inquiry into his fitness
for the Supreme Court during his confirmation hearings by publicly
alleging that the proceedings amounted to little more than a ’high-tech
lynching.’ And hip-hop mogul Jay-Z called for a black boycott of a
pricey brand of champagne after an executive with the company complained
about having their product associated with gangsta rap.
According to Richard Thompson Ford, author of The Race Card: How
Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse, these incidents suggest
that some relatively well-to-do and well-connected African-Americans
might be willing to make inappropriate accusations of prejudice for
purely selfish reasons. The problem is that in the process they are
subverting the honorable ideals of the Civil Rights Movement to
eradicate Jim Crow segregation and the more egregious evidence of the
vestiges of slavery in society.
The author laments that such manipulation has backfired, because ’it
distracts attention from larger social injustices’ and ’encourages
vindictiveness and provokes defensiveness when open-mindedness and
sympathy are needed.’ He goes on to say that whites were disheartened to
observe African-Americans celebrating the O.J. verdict, which they saw
as ’a frightening indication that many blacks would rejoice in
retaliatory injustices.’
For whites often feel they are themselves the victims of a demeaning
racial stereotype that would have everyone believe they are ’plain
vanilla’ and ’dull milquetoasts’ whose virtues can only be narrowly
assessed ’by grades and test scores.’ Regardless of whether white men
can't jump or have rhythm, leveling charges of either racism or
reverse-racism for unmerited advantage are more likely to engender
responses of cynicism than empathy nowadays.
Ford concludes that opportunists who resort to the tactic of playing the
race card ’are the enemies of truth, social harmony, and social
justice.’ His solution? ’For all decent and honest people’ to join in
condemning any such perpetrators. Certainly, food for thought at the
dawn of what has been dubbed by some a post-racial age.