White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay (Hardcover)

by Star Parker (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Touching on Sex and the City, Snoop Dogg, the National Organization for Women, stem-cell research and "the It's-Natural-To-Be-Gay movement," born-again Parker decries the "radicalized progressive liberalism that has pervaded Middle America and usurped the authority of our founding fathers" in her indictment of all things not hard-line Christian that posits the suburbs are just as rife with immorality as the inner-city. Parker discusses "sexual pandemonium," the dissolution of the traditional family and the concepts of the insanity plea and hate crime (not the existence of the crimes, but the existence of the concept) in an effort to discover "why so many obvious areas of moral breakdown exist throughout the country." No matter what the perceived malady, the cure is simple: the moral alignment of all with Judeo Christian values. Parker may mean well, but her shallow critique will turn off anyone not already in her camp.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description

Decaying values. Sexually transmitted diseases.

Fatherless homes. Rampant drug use.

These aren't just problems for today's inner cities.

It's the plight of all America.

Much has been said about Bill Cosby's incendiary remarks about urban black culture and its "dirty laundry." But in this provocative book, Star Parker, one of today's most controversial commentators, goes even further, proving that urban plight simply reveals a decay that is gnawing its way throughout American society as a whole.

The sexual chaos, values disorientation, and social turmoil we see in our inner cities, Parker argues, is just a magnified reflection of the moral collapse happening all over America: in our schools, our churches, our homes. And this slide toward moral decrepitude is all due to a flagrant dismissal of and assault on America's tried-and-true values.

With startling statistics and disturbing stories about the increasing secularization and criminalization of the middle class, Parker holds a cracked mirror up to suburbia. Taking on tough subjects such as abortion, drug abuse, sexual politics, and religion, she offers a rousing exploration of the raging cultural war-taking you on a wild, eye-opening tour through the White Ghetto.

Star Parker is the founder and president of CURE, the Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education, a nonprofit organization that provides national dialogue on issues of race and poverty in the media, inner city neighborhoods, and public policy. Star is a regular commentator on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and the BBC, which reaches 300 million homes worldwide. Her articles and quotes have also appeared in major publications including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, and is currently a weekly syndicated columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. Star is the author of Pimps, Whores, and Welfare Brats and Uncle Sam's Plantation.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson (March 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595550275
• ISBN-13: 978-1595550279
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #77,912 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moral Decreptitude, April 30, 2006

By	Edwin "where are all the naked girls?" (Hollis, NY USA) - See all my reviews

The facts and statistics that Star Parker point out in her book are horrifying. The decline in morals coupled with the continuing failure of government programs has resulted in the decay of life in the inner-city. Although this decay of inner-city life is right in America's face, the same decay is happening in suburban Middle America--it is just hidden under wealth and privilege.

The loss of values and morals mixed with the left's obsession at "adopting" the lives of inner-city Americans is a direct cause of misery for these very Americans. Star Parker does a great job at showing this.

Because I am supportive of gay rights and same sex marriage, I found some of the book's rhetoric aimed at homosexuals a bit harsh. HOWEVER, whether or not you are supportive of same sex marriage, it's undeniable that some of the tactics used by proponents of gay rights are dishonest and manipulative. But this same dishonesty is practiced by liberals, democrats, republicans, libertarians, atheists and so-called civil rights leaders and Star Parker does a great job at exposing them all.

24 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Awesome Book!!!, November 2, 2006

By	Dave Pershall "dpersh" (Geigertown, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I grew up conservative, but going to college, watching lots of TV and working with teens, I slowly began to wonder if "liberals" could be right in some areas. Isn't helping the poor a good thing, and don't we want to be free to make choices?

Star Parker clearly and boldly shatered the lies that I had begun to believe and has helped me to be more sure than ever of the biblical principles of hard work and Biblical morality. These fondations are the only way for "middle America" to help the poor and at the same time stop our own slide toward imorality and socialism!

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Personal Responsibility Helps But This Book Does Not, August 17, 2007

By	Charles Bradley (Acton , MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a book with some important ideas, but it is so badly done that I fear it will
not be effective at changing behaviors.

The subtitle is "How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay." Parker claims the
problems of the ghetto, broken families, drug abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, bad
schools, crime, you name it, are increasing in "middle America" and we can expect the
slide to continue unless we repent and change out ways. She supports her claim with various
statistics. The first problem is "claim". There are no specific sources in the text, but
usually the name of the source of the data. There is a 17 entry bibliography, with no
cross references to the text, but all are on the web, so some might be still available.
There is also no index. The table of contents is fairly detailed, but many of the titles
will not help you find what you are looking for.

I did not try to check any of the claims; some, perhaps most, seemed right but some seemed
wrong. There were enough other mistakes in the book to make me suspect the statistics.
Some mistakes seemed like sloppy word processing, missing words or changing the wording but
not completely eliminating the old wording. Others seemed more serious, mis-attributing a
quote, or getting it wrong. In some cases she got the facts of government wrong. Judges do
not seek search warrants, they authorize them.

Here is more of her analysis. The cause of many of the problems is a victim attitude, a
lack of individual responsibility. That is caused by government and other handouts, such as
admission to schools too tough to succeed in. Along the way she attacks homosexuality,
abortion, liberals, homosexuality, abortion, the Kelo decision, the ACLU, homosexuality,
evolution, abortion, voters (for allowing all this), and homosexuality and abortion. The
cure is religion, preferably Christianity. Late in the book, the possibility of a society
without the problems she deplores, and with a strong sense of individual responsibility,
is dismissed as impossible without religion. The solution is for Christians to
stand up for their real beliefs and not treat tolerance as the greatest good and
judgment as the worst evil.

Other reviewers have noted that the book seems rambling and disjointed. I suspect that some
of the material was originally intended for an opinion column.

There are lots of shades of gray in the world, but there is still black and white. I fear
the good in this book will be ignored because of the weaknesses. I expect that much of the
criticism will be of the form, "How dare a black person think for herself and even be a
conservative."