Naomi Zack Thinking About Race

Racial attitudes over the past two have been polarized in general into two camps. In the one camp are those who feel that racial injustice, prejudice, and institutionally (read white) reinforced negative attitudes towards African Americans are alive and fully operational in American society and culture. This camp often argues in favor of reconstruction efforts such as reparations, definition of racial identities, and the formation of racially-oriented political groups. In the other camp are those who believe that race concepts, racial identities, and racial political movements impede the development of a wholly mixed-race society and culture. This camp believes that resentment, inaccuracy, and confusion are generated by the theories and efforts of the other camp. Perhaps James Baldwin defined this dilemma between the two and their inability to create a meaningful and productive dialogue when he wrote:

On the one hand (whites) scarcely dare to open a dialogue which must, if it is honest, become a personal confession � a cry for help and healing which is, really, I think, the basis of all dialogues, and, on the other hand, the black man can scarcely dare to open a dialogue which must, if it is honest, become a personal confession which fatally contains an accusation. And yet if neither of us cannot do this each of us will perish in those traps in which we have been struggling for so long.

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