Race Matters: Book Analysis

In the book “Race Matters “Dr. Cornell West positioning himself at the intersection between the academy, the black church and the world at large. Dr. West has the ability to discern synthesis where others see only chaos and inspire hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. On the issue of race, West attempts to address the root cause of the plight that is causing the decay of the Black Community. In his attempt to be a nonpolitical figure, he discusses how the political parties played a major role in the desecration of the morals, ideas and beliefs facing black America. West states, “The Liberal / Conservative discussion conceals the most basic issue now facing black America: the nihilistic threat to its very existence. Dr. West felt that in order to legitimately discuss race relations in America, then the conversation has to go beyond, government, academia and black organizations. West argues that "we need to begin with a frank acknowledgment of the basic humanness and Americanism of each of us . . . If we go down, we go down together."
By analyzing social issues through a humanistic and often spiritual lens, West transforms discussions of the fine points of affirmative action or the failings of black leadership into wide-ranging inquiries on the human condition. West's thinking consistently challenges the conventional wisdom. Black leaders should have been honest, he writes, about the fact that Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill were "two black Republican conservative supporters of some of the most vicious policies to besiege black working and poor communities since Jim and Jane Crow segregation." Black sexuality is a taboo subject in America principally because it is a form of black power over which whites have little control, he argues in one essay. And West faults both blacks and Jews for