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1 internautes sur 1 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
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One of the worst books ever written., Nov. 23 2003
First, let me say that I am a libertarian (an ideology whose adherents generally seem to agree with the principles D'souza espouses). Second, let me add that while I am not a racist ( a term I find misleading, because it implies a defining character trait as opposed to one that may manifest in certain situations), I hold the uncommon viewpoint that racism is just as legitimate of an ideology as any other, and that discrimination CAN be rational. However, this book is so pathetic that it ranks lower than whatever deconstructionist, multiculturalist, Marxist book is popular.Let us first look at the meat of D'souza's work, which I will sum up in three points. 1. Slavery has nothing to do with current black poverty.
2. Black poverty is caused by black culture.
3. The pathologies of black culture are a result of slavery. While not making any link, D'souza explains that blacks' condition is a result of the fact that black individuals are more likely to be lazy, criminal, etc... than whites. He then (actually, he does this earlier in the book) explains convincingly how slave culture obviously lends itself to laziness and theft. Both of these points are probably true, but they contradict the central thesis of the book which is that past oppression has little to do with current black poverty. The secondary thesis of this book is that Western Culture is superior to that of any other. Let us now look at his claim of Western Moral superiority. He claims that modern western cultures were the first to ever voluntarily abolish slavery, and he cites a study which attempted to complete the difficult task of researching every culture that ever existed and the way they dealt with slavery. However, it is a known fact that slavery was outlawed in Ancient India. Another problem with this book is that it supports the neocon claim that Martin Luther King supported black and white equality and colorblindness. D'Souza avoids the many things king wrote explicitly in favor of reparations for slavery, affirmative action, separatism, and black economic protectionism such as: "A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him, to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis." "No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries...Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages. The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the appropriation of a the labor of one human being by another. This law should be made to apply for American Negroes. The payment should be in the form of a massive program by the government of special, compensatory measures which could be regarded as a settlement in accordance with the accepted practice of common law." (MLK's 1964 book "Why we cant wait") D'Souza attacks a straw man about how while king believed in equal results by claiming that he felt the way to accomplish
this was through equal rights, and that if he had lived longer, he would have seen his error. D'souza's account of Christopher Columbus is terrible History. (For an equally shoddy, but opposite point of view, read anything by Howard Zinn) He simply selects certain quotes by explorers that support his conclusion, while eschewing others that may serve to contradict it. Most of the early part of the book, which focuses on a time in a more distant past, is made up of anecdotes from contemporary figures, which he uses as "proof" of the way the world was. If someone did that to describe present day America, they would be laughed at, why don't people do this for ancient history?
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