Not at all sure what the point about Louis Farrakhan might be. If Pinckney's point is about the tendency for some white people to feel it is their privilege to disqualify and marginalize certain black leaders for their own reasons and despite those leaders' popularity with many black people, then this offhand criticism seems to prove the point. Or is it just a random criticism of writing style?
New Orleanian here who'd love to know what the name of said restaurant.
@Bum People on twitter are saying that it's Mother.
@Bum Twitter says Mothers.
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"In 'Dreams From Obama,' from 2008, Pinckney writes that 'however unpopular it has been as a public policy, affirmative action has succeeded in integrating the middle class,' a statement that rings hollow now, especially in light of the recent college admissions scandals."
I haven't read the book, but I'm going to assume he does not mean the middle class is a racially well-balanced reflection of American society. I think what he means is that African Americans needed policy to assist them in overcoming rigid institutional and personal discrimination, and that has in fact worked. Surely, the American middle class is much more integrated along racial and ethnic lines than it was fifty years ago. Also, form my perspective, the college admissions scandal is all about wealthy people perpetuating their dominance and privilege intergenerationally at the same old elite schools, as they have always done, so I'm not sure how this serves as a devastating real-time critique of affirmative action policies, or really anyone's ability to make it into the middle class, which commonly has little to do with the upper echelon of higher education institutions.
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@Chris thank God the lower class, I haven't read the book either
@Chris The closest I can get with his statements of integrated middle class and race has to do with "some large cities". Others may say "many" but integration has not moved into the "middle class" of "small town Midwest" to any degree. Too many if not all of the small and middle sized towns in the Midwest are still basically white. Even Latinos are not as fully accepted in most small towns that they go to to fill jobs whites don't want. I have lived in both kinds of towns and cities and color can make a difference though it doesn't seem to be as great in the minds of many in BIG cites but the supremacy is still there--just scattered more. But there will always be some prejudice and it doesn't all go white against black Many blacks have difficulty being neighbors to "us white folk." The younger ones are not as broad minded as many grandmothers, ironically. Teaching in a HS for 35 years showed me numerous black males that tried to misbehave and when I called them on it, they claimed to the counsellor that I was a racists. My husband was dark chocolate from E. 20th Street in Harlem. We lived together for 23 years until he died .
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