"While overt prejudice is now much less prevalent than in decades past, subtle prejudice - prejudice that is inconspicuous, indirect, and often unconscious - continues to pervade. Laws do not protect against subtle prejudice and, because of its covert nature, it is difficult to observe and frequently goes undetected by both perpetrator and victim. Benign Bigotry uses a fresh, original format to examine subtle prejudice by addressing six commonly held...

This book challenges many assumptions about blacks, Jews, Germans, slavery, and education. Plainly written and backed with documented facts, it takes on not only the trendy intellectuals of our times but also such historic interpreters of American life as Alexis de Tocqueville and Frederick Law Olmsted. In a series of long essays, Sowell presents an in-depth look at key beliefs behind many mistaken and dangerous actions, policies, and trends, and...

The authors argue that, in spite of decades of racial progress and the pervasiveness of multicultural rhetoric, racial judgments are often based not just on skin color, but on how a person conforms to behavior stereotypically associated with a certain race. Specifically, racial minorities are judged on how they "perform" their race: the clothes they wear, the way they style their hair, the institutions with which they affiliate, their racial politics,...

Loving, hating, pitying, or pining for mammy became a way for Americans to make sense of shifting economic, social, and racial realities. Assertions of black contentment with servitude alleviated white fears while reinforcing racial hierarchy. McElya's stories expose the power and reach of this myth, not only in advertising, films, and literature about the South, but also in national monument proposals, child custody cases, New Negro activism, anti-lynching...