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The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It
Crown
August 2006
256 pages ISBN: 0307338231 EAN: 9780307338235 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Political
Half a century after brave Americans took to the streets
to raise the bar of opportunity for all races, Juan Williams
writes that too many black Americans are in crisis -- caught
in a twisted hip-hop culture, dropping out of school, ending
up in jail, having babies when they are not ready to be
parents, and falling to the bottom in twenty-first-century
global economic competition.
In Enough, Juan
Williams issues a lucid, impassioned clarion call to do the
right thing now, before we travel so far off the glorious
path set by generations of civil rights heroes that there
can be no more reaching back to offer a hand and rescue
those being left behind.
Inspired by Bill Cosby's now
famous speech at the NAACP gala celebrating the fiftieth
anniversary of the Brown decision integrating schools,
Williams makes the case that while there is still racism, it
is way past time for black Americans to open their eyes to
the "culture of failure" that exists within their community.
He raises the banner of proud black traditional values --
self-help, strong families, and belief in God -- that
sustained black people through generations of oppression and
flowered in the exhilarating promise of the modern civil
rights movement. Williams asks what happened to keeping our
eyes on the prize by proving the case for equality with
black excellence and achievement.
He takes particular
aim at prominent black leaders -- from Al Sharpton to Jesse
Jackson to Marion Barry. Williams exposes the call for
reparations as an act of futility, a detour into self-pity;
he condemns the "Stop Snitching" campaign as nothing more
than a surrender to criminals; and he decries the
glorification of materialism, misogyny, and murder as a
corruption of a rich black culture, a tragic turn into
pornographic excess that is hurting young black minds,
especially among the poor.
Reinforcing his incisive
observations with solid research and alarming statistical
data, Williams offers a concrete plan for overcoming the
obstacles that now stand in the way of African Americans'
full participation in the nation's freedom and prosperity.
Certain to be widely discussed and vehemently debated,
Enough is a bold, perceptive, solution-based look at
African American life, culture, and politics today.
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