saeedahmed.com

The Maroon Tiger Work

THE END OF RACISM: LONG ON CONJECTURE, SHORT ON LOGIC

By SAEED AHMED

Bigotry sells ... And Dinesh D'Souza knows it.

In the early '80s, as editor-in-chief of the The Dartmouth Review, D'Souza garnered national attention by propagating neo-nazi and KKK theories.

In 1993, his controversial best-seller, Illiberal Education, wherein he challenged the need for multiculturalism on college campuses, brought him $174,000 in speaking engagements from conservative organizations like the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Now, the 34-year-old Indian-born conservative has returned with a new manifesto.

The End of Racism, D'Souza's latest offering, claims racism is long dead and the problems that plague African-Americans today are of their own making.

D'Souza contends the current African-American condition stems from the fact that blacks, on every socioeconomic level, are uncompetitive. They flagrantly violate and scandalize basic codes of decency and civility, and represent "a revival of barbarism in the midst of Western civilization."

And thus, D'Souza concludes, it is no wonder that African-Americans still face discrimination; indeed, he says, many of those who are racists are so for valid reasons.

His prescription for change? Act white, abandon "idiotic back-to-Africa schemes," and embrace mainstream cultural norms.

He calls the black culture "dysfunctional," and says, "There is no self-esteem to be found in Africa or even in the dubious ideologies of blackness."

What is most remarkable about The End of Racism is not its controversial assertions, but rather, the total lack of arguments provided to support these illogical views. Like Camille Paglia in the feminist circle, D'Souza says whatever it takes to attract attention and his take on his subject is conjectural and heavily distorted.

Consider these observations:

-- D'Souza argues slavery was not racist, and bases this solely on the fact that some free blacks and Native Americans owned slaves.

-- He claims segregation was a well-meaning attempt by paternalistic whites to help blacks "perform to capacity of their arrested development."

-- He urges the repeal of every civil right law, including those that allowed African-Americans to drink from the same water fountain.

-- And he asks that if America owes blacks a group reparation for slavery, do not blacks as a group owe America something too for the abolition of slavery?

The book follows in the footsteps of last year's best-seller, The Bell Curve, and not surprisingly, is published by the same company, New York City's Free Press. But while The Bell Curve employed academic studies in an attempt to prove the genetic superiority of whites, the 724 pages of The End of Racism lack both the empirical data and the intellectual substance to back the complex issues D'Souza tries to address.

D'Souza, who considers himself a man of color, claims his is a "provocative and morally correct" book that seeks to prescribe the right medicine for the well-being of African-Americans. He believes the criticism it has generated is simply because he is a non-African-American discussing critical race issues.

But what Dinesh D'Souza fails to see - and given his myopic vision, it is no wonder - is that there is a difference between a critique of racism and racism itself. The firestorm of controversy that The End of Racism has generated among both liberals and his fellow conservatives is not because his views are politically incorrect, but because the beliefs he espouses are just plain racist.