These policies have been in place for a generation. They have done some good -- for instance, by accelerating the formation of a black middle class. Yet at the same time they have heightened race consciousness and given it the respectability of law. Moreover, other groups with much weaker historical claims -- such as women, Latinos, and homosexuals -- have climbed aboard the affirmative-action bandwagon, broadening the political coalition that sustains the regime of preferences but weakening its moral foundation. Who can explain why a nonwhite immigrant should get preference for a college seat, a job, or a government contract over a native-born white with stronger qualifications?

"The ideals of liberty upon which the country was founded ... were surely compromised by the perpetuation of racial caste in American society until the mid-twentieth century. How we deal with the race issue indicates the k

"Innumerable young journalists and legislative staffers came of age during the long Reagan-Bush civil-rights winter.... They exhibit not the burning impatience for racial justice common in the 1960s but a self-serving conviction that 'reverse discrimination' is the compelling civil-rights issue of their generation. Now, as they take control of our politics and civic culture, their moral compasses point fixedly toward their own navels."

"In the end, the problem with 'culture' as an explanatory category in the hands of the morally obtuse is that it is used as an exculpatory device rather than as a starting point for discussion about mutual obligation."

Some topics in this essay:
Nicholas Lemann, Glenn Loury, , Asian-Americans Hispanics, Christopher Edley, Thernstroms Loury, Post Riposte, White America, Roundtable Round, Thomas Sowell, glenn loury, rest loury's response, whites asians, loury's response, public policy, loury responds, rest loury's, post riposte, black progress, families earning, glenn loury responds,