Hating Whitey: And Other Progressive Causes (Hardcover)

~ David Horowitz (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In his introduction to Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes, former Marxist turned conservative muckraker David Horowitz insists that his views on race "have remained entirely consistent with my previous commitments and beliefs.... I believed that only government neutrality towards racial groups was compatible with the survival of a multi-ethnic society that is also democratic. I still believe that today." Horowitz has, in fact, remained remarkably consistent in attacking elite social institutions and their subtle attempts to promote what Nicholas Lemann refers to in The Big Test as a "meritocracy." While former colleagues from the '60s have come to defend the rise of progressives within the bunkers of power, Horowitz still assaults the ramparts with venomous glee; his appearances on cable TV news shows, NPR, and the Salon Web site have earned him a legion of fans.

In Hating Whitey, Horowitz pummels administrators, hapless scholars, rival pundits, and embattled defenders of affirmative action and race-based quotas. But while Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom and Shelby Steele have made the case against racial preference with rigorous methodological approaches or rhetorical eloquence, Horowitz doesn't throw much new light on the issue. Even the revealing personal essays dealing with the author's ill-fated tenure with the Black Panthers in the early '70s recycle material previously covered in his autobiography Radical Son. This time around, Horowitz mostly names names and issues ideological fatwas against those with whom he disagrees, invoking the 1950s anti-Communist newsletter Red Channels at its prime. Hating Whitey may satiate the blood lust of the converted, but it's only marginally useful in the larger discussions of race relations in America. --John M. Anderson

From Publishers Weekly

Once a prominent U.S. leftist, Horowitz garnered an even larger reputation upon the publication of Radical Son, his memoir documenting his transformation from a radical to a conservative. Now, as the editor of the intentionally provocative conservative journal Heterodoxy and a frequent columnist for Salon, Horowitz employs heat-seeking rhetoric that aims to be as inflammatory as possible. Taking on U.S. race relations and claiming that "anti-white racism" has become intrinsic to the black civil rights movement and "common currency of the 'progressive' intelligentsia," he launches an all-out attack that is almost comical in its single-mindedness. He documents Louis Farrakhan's controversial and contested statements attacking white European and American culture and politics; goes after Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, "whose boundless suspicions of white Americans amount to a demonization as intense as Elijah Muhammad's"; and characterizes Harvard Law School professor Derrick Bell as a "black racist" and a "product of the Communist left." He also explores how American universities have been destroyed by leftist "McCarthyism" and the "political persecution of Newt Gingrich by liberal democrats." But such provocation, presented in essays that seem hurriedly written and which lack footnotes (or any documentation of their more questionable facts), quickly devolves into a boring rant. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Spence Publishing Company; 1St Edition edition (September 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 189062621X
• ISBN-13: 978-1890626211
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (85 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #791,506 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes Truth Hurts Before It Sets You Free, October 19, 1999

By A Customer

Admittedly, in these politically correct times, the very title, "Hating Whitey," makes one grimace, but upon finishing this book it becomes apparant the author is a humanitarian, loves his country, and is brutally honest in his quest to place an imperfect America in perspective as the world leader in the protection of human rights. Hating Whitey, challenges the tiny yet powerful socialist world of high minded special interest liberals, who feel their self serving hidden agendas are beyond scrutiny, debate, or even national security. Whether you agree with the point of view or not, Hating Whitey, has done a gutsy thing, and was written in an honest if idealogical way, in a somewhat forceful leftest style. On its "debate quotient' alone this book should be required reading in all places of higher education. Unfortunately, we live in a time of nanosecond attention spans, and the danger is that, half truths that feel warm and fuzzy are at odds with uncomfortable realities. Unless given thoughtful intellectual attention, Hating Whitey, will be totally misunderstood. Indeed, this humanitarian effort for clarity, democracy, and true integration, deserves our complete attention.

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tremendous collection of essays., November 23, 1999

By A Customer

I saw David Horowitz on a television program decided to get the book. Well, I got the book and it's a stunning expose of the forces that are deliberately tearing our country apart and imparting a message of hate toward not only fellow Americans, but toward the very core ideas and principles of our country. In some ways, this book should be called "Hating America". It's writers like the author who continue the color blind and equal society envisioned by Martin Luther King, Jr. I suspect the author will be demonized in the same way as the early civil rights workers, but I hope he can endure and keep telling the truth.

55 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Someone has finally told the truth!, December 2, 1999

By A Customer

The only difference between white racism and black racism in the United States, is that Black racism is perfectly respectable -- made so by the ideologues that control the media in this country. Thank God for Mr. Horowitz who can't be intimidated and has the guts to tell the truth. This book should be required reading in every school in Ameica, but of course we know it won't, It's too honest.