The History of Politics and Race in America 1968-present

Summary: A history of race and politics since the civil rights era.

I am a big fan of Great Courses-styled audiobooks. They often are helpful in summarizing complex issues, but one of the weaknesses, which is present here, is that they can be oriented more toward summary than laying out detailed evidence for those new to a subject. My main complaint about the course/audiobook is that it is too short.

The negative reviews on Audible are overwhelmingly calling this book “woke” or “leftist propaganda.” Only one of the negative reviews had any specifics about what they thought was wrong, which was a misunderstanding of Candis Smith's point. Many negative reviews complained that it was only talking to people who already agreed with her, and I am unsure how to evaluate this point; in some sense, the complaint is valid. If the course were designed primarily to convince people who deny that racism continues to play a role in politics, it would be a very different course. The course focuses on an overview of how race and politics have shifted since the end of the civil rights era, not on convincing white people of the changes.

The course opens with a discussion of the Kerner Commission. I am going to quote from Wikipedia about the report, but these points were in the course:

The report's best-known passage warned: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” The report was a strong indictment of white America: “What white Americans have never fully understood — but what the Negro can never forget — is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.”[11]

Its results suggested that one main cause of urban violence was white racism and suggested that white America bore much of the responsibility for black rioting and rebellion.