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American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise
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About This Book
A sweeping examination of how American racism has broken the country's social compact, eroded America's common goods, and damaged the lives of every American--and a heartfelt look at how these deep wounds might begin to heal. Compared to other industrialized nations, the United States is losing ground across nearly every indicator of social health. Its race problem, argues Eduardo Porter, is largely to blame. In American Poison, the New York Times veteran shows how racial animus has stunted the development of nearly every institution crucial for a healthy society, including organized labor, public education, and the social safety net. The consequences are profound and are only growing graver with time. Leading us through history and across America--from FDR's New Deal through Bill Clinton's welfare reform to Donald Trump's retrograde and divisive policies--Porter pieces together how racial hostility has blocked American social cohesion at every turn, producing a nation that fails not only its black and brown citizens but white Americans as well. American Poison is at once a broad, rigorous argument, and a profound cri de coeur. Even as it uncovers our most tenacious national pathology, it points the way toward hope, illuminating the ways in which, as the nation becomes increasingly diverse, it may well be possible to construct a new understanding of racial identity--and a more cohesive society on top of it.
Reviews
"That said, this isn't a book that invites the start of an argument about the role of racism in shaping this country; this is a book that cuts to the root of racism, traces it from slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation and brings it all the way to today with unblinking honesty and facts."
"Rather than harp on the known history of racism's origins...Porter looks hard at the twentieth century, especially the post-civil rights era, to consider how all the things done to eradicate, or even mitigate, racism have been woefully insufficient."
"This book came out around the start of the pandemic emergency, and so it is unfair to criticize Porter for failing to anticipate the all but universal cry right now for an effective 'apparatus of government.' Even so, Porter's jeremiad makes it impossible to understand the equally tenacious history of American progressive government ..."
"lacks a true safety net, not just for people of color, but also for lower-income whites ..."
"...an anguished and incisive treatise on how racism has contributed to 21st-century America's economic and social decline ..."
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