Race-specific programs cannot build the broad coalitions needed for transformation

Evidence

An emphasis on universal, as opposed to race-specific, programs isn’t just good policy; it’s also good politics….Rightly or wrong, white guilt has largely exhausted itself in America; even the most fair-minded of whites, those who would genuinely like to see racial inequality ended and poverty relieved, tend to push back against suggestions of racial victimization—or race-specific claims based on the history of race discrimination in this country….As a result, proposals that solely benefit minorities and dissect Americans into “us” and “them” may generate a few short-term concessions when the costs to whites aren’t too high, but they can’t serve as the basis for the kinds of sustained, broad-based political coalitions needed to transform America. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 428

Categorization

• XREF: This is the universalist position Glaude quotes and interrogates; reader can hold it against Glaude’s value-gap thesis.