White Guilt
How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era
Chapter OneA Dilemma
Sometimes it is a banality -- something a little sad and laughable -- that makes you aware of a deep cultural change. On some level you already knew it, so that when the awareness comes, there is more recognition than surprise. Yes, of course, things have changed.
So it was not long after the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal began that it occurred to me that race had dramatically changed the terms by which political power is won and held in America. When I woke on that January morning to the sight of President Clinton wagging his finger on the morning news and saying "I never had sex with that woman," I thought two things: that he was lying and that he would be out of office within two weeks. It was a month later that I realized not only that he might survive his entire term but also that his survival, even for a month, already spoke volumes about the moral criterion for holding power in the United States.
I came to this realization on a drive back to northern California from Los ... read full excerpt from: White Guilt ebook
