Overview
The idea that taxpayers should pay reparations to African Americans for the damages of slavery and segregation has won the backing of important black politicians like Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich), distinguished black intellectuals like Henry Louis Gates and activists like Randall Robinson, who led the successful boycott movement against South Africa a decade ago.In this well researched and carefully argued book, David Horowitz examines the case for reparations and concludes that it is "morally questionable and racially incendiary." He notes that only a tiny minority of Americans ever owned slaves; and most Americans living today (white and otherwise) are descended from post-Civil War immigrants who have no lineal connection to slavery at all. More intriguingly, he also points out that the GNP of black America is so large that it makes the African American community the tenth most prosperous "nation" in the world. "Since American blacks on average enjoy per capita incomes of 20-50 times those of blacks living in the African nations from which their ancestors were seized," he writes, "should the descendants of slaves pay themselves for benefiting from the fruits of their ancestors' servitude?"
But in addition to providing a casebook on the hot button issue of reparations, Uncivil Wars also reveals a crisis of free speech on our college campuses, where the reparations movement is centered. In the hope of initiating a dialogue, Horowitz tried to air his arguments in a series of advertisements in college newspapers last spring and found himself struck in a briar patch of censorship. Some of the editors who accepted the ad were forced to denounce themselves Chinese communist-style. Others simply rejected the ad altogether as politically incorrect. The controversy escalated, with commentators throughout the national media joining the ACLU in expressing dismay at the state of tolerance and free expression in the American university.
Uncivil Wars shows what happens when the new racial orthodoxy collides with tolerance and free speech and what the implications of this conflict are for American education and culture.
Synopsis
The idea that taxpayers should pay reparations to African Americans for the damages of slavery and segregation is quickly becoming a central demand of some civil rights leaders. It has the backing of important black politicians like Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich), distinguished black intellectuals like Henry Louis Gates and activists like Randall Robinson, who led the successful boycott movement against South Africa a decade ago. The Chicago City Council has overwhelmingly endorsed the concept and municipalities and state governments around the country are considering giving it support. In this well researched and carefully argued book, David Horowitz traces the origins of the reparations movement. He examines the case made by its advocates and concludes that it is "morally questionable and racially incendiary." He notes that only a tiny minority of Americans ever owned slaves; and most Americans living today (white and otherwise) are descended from post-Civil War immigrants who have no lineal connection to slavery at all. More intriguingly, he also points out that the GNP of black America is so large that it makes the African American community the tenth most prosperous "nation" in the world. But this book is more than just an in depth casebook on the hot button issue of reparations. In the hope of initiating a dialogue, Horowitz originally presented a summary of his ideas on this subject in the form of an advertisement that appeared in several college newspapers and was rejected by many more. Editorialists in America's leading papers and several chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union weighed on Horowitz's side. With the assistance of Richard Poe, Horowitz uses the response to the reparations issue to show how the new racial orthodoxy collides with the free speech battle and what its implications are for American education and culture.