Customer Reviews

Toxic Diversity: Race, Gender, and Law Talk in America

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Professor Subotnik gives a very sane and thoroughly researched discourse on the current trend in race and gender relations. Have women and minorities parlayed their victimization into a status that allows them to discriminate, victimize, badmouth, and even worse, with impunity? Does past victimization require retribution in perpetuity? These are some of the questions he addresses with wit, humor, and the odd French or Latin phrase. Occasionally the book borders on intellectual elitism, but this can be forgiven as on the whole it is quite accessible and altogether a good read. This is not a book for those who shun "politically incorrect" speech or who still believe that past victimization legitimizes reverse discrimination and worse. It is a book for all those looking to gain some insight into the whys and hows of race realtions today and some of the steps that can be taken to help swing the pendulum back to center.

The thoroughness with which Prof. Subotnik explores the multiple (and often self contradictory) facets of the race-&-gender-critic arguments, and questions the motives of those who put them forward, is impressive. His method of presenting counter-arguments by quoting third parties with impeccable race-&-gender credentials neatly deflects the standard "don't listen to him, he's just a typical white / male racist / chauvinist" response. And the humour which runs merrily throughout the text helps clarify the issues he raises, as well as making the book highly readable.

Reading this from a British viewpoint, it's hard to understand how so many ideas which seem misconceived or just plain barmy could have become so firmly entrenched in American academic institutions - places one would like to think of as havens of enlightened rationality. But of course, it's starting to happen in the UK too, and our Government's plans to legislate against "incitement to religious hatred" could exacerbate the existing confusion over "racism" law. We too have our race-awareness industry (mostly NGO-based rather than in universities) and here too the personal interests of this industry's leaders may often be seen to lie in obfuscation rather than clarity, and in making race relations worse rather than better.

This book should be required reading for anyone interested in race-relations and the question of how to set about improving them.