about the inhabitants of a society morernbackward than their own, a point thatrnD’Souza first concedes but then ignores.rnHis indignant comments about lynchingsrnin the American South in the earlyrnyears of the century assume an enormityrnof wickedness that is not borne out byrnthe facts. Black violence in Southernrncities m the 1880’s and 1890’s approachedrnlevels associated with thernunderclass of today, and was a matterrnof concern even to the black radicalrnW.E.B. Du Bois. Summary justice wasrnthe means of dealing with this problem,rnand, as Dwight Murphey suggests inrnConservative Review (Summer 1995), itrnis hard to demonstrate that most of thernexecutions for murder and rape carriedrnout in the South or elsewhere were motivatedrnprimarily by race. Rather, theyrnusually corresponded to the incidence ofrnviolent crime among the races, and Murpheyrnadduces documented cases inrnwhich Southern courts absolved blacksrnwho had lynched white murderers.rnBlacks often lynched other blacks in thernfrontier situation that characterizedrnmuch of the post-Civil War South, andrnwhites were susceptible to the same vigilanternjustice. Murphey cites the work ofrna 60’s liberal to show that lynchings inrnthe South were less numerous than onernmight infer from current historiography.rnOne might cite the same sources againstrnD’Souza’s two-page diatribe.rnThe most troubling generalization inrnThe End of Racism is the assertion thatrnthe “ancient and early Christian societiesrnof the West cannot be rightly accusedrnof racism.” D’Souza qualifies this otherwisernpuzzling observation by statingrnthat Greeks, Romans, and Christiansrn”made crucial distinctions—betweenrnnature and custom, between civilizationrnand barbarism, between salvation andrndamnation—that would later be invokedrnto justify racism.” While it is true thatrnneither classical antiquity nor medievalrnChristendom developed any full-blownrnscientific racialism, this is only a partialrntruth. Aristotle did believe in inheritedrnethnic differences between Greeks andrnbarbarians; in his remarks to Alexanderrnthe Great regarding the inadvisability ofrnintermarriage between Greeks and Persians,rnhe cites genetic as well as customaryrndifferences. His criticism of “conventionalrnslavery,” which Straussians andrnD’Souza read as a veiled call for abolition,rnis actually an appeal to Hellenic solidarityrnmade in the Mcomachean Ethics.rnAristotle declaims against the practice ofrnGreeks taking other Greeks as war captivesrnand enslaving them, but barbarians,rnhe believed, were accustomed to despoticrncontrol. Both references to barbariansrnin the Nicomachean Ethics stress theirrnphysical and moral degeneracy.rnIt is naive to think that the Greekrnsense of ethnicity and repugnance towardrnforeigners was based entirely onrncultural pride. Or, that the distinctionsrndrawn between Normans and Anglo-rnSaxons in llth-eentury England, or betweenrnPrankish noblemen and Celticrnpeasants in prerevolutionary France,rnwere free of racialist attitudes. And howrndoes D’Souza explain the Spanish Inquisition,rnwhich persecuted Jewish conversesrnfor their genealogical shortcomings, asrnthree leading scholars of Spanish Jewryrn—Americo Castro, M.D. Ortiz, andrnBcnzion Netanyahu—argue? To ascribernthis persecution to theological scrupulousnessrnor mere political envy is to overlookrnthe reaction against foreigners andrnimpure blood in 16th-century Spain.rnThe most glaring error in D’Souza’srnbook, however, is the Utopian belief thatrnkeeps popping up—amid evidence tornthe contrary—that ethnic and racial tensionsrnare only a passing phase of humanrnexistence. Only bad people, like scientificrnracialists, anti-Christian skeptics, andrnblack nationalists, have kept this phasernfrom ending in the United States, butrnthe march of history presumably willrnsoon bring about a “multiracial society.”rnI for one shall bet on the continuation ofrnfriend-enemy groupings, as opposed tornD’Souza’s eonfectcd paradise. I shall alsornwager on the persistence of racial andrn”gender” quotas, a policy that D’Souzarnbelieves is ending, unless the Americanrnpolitical class is severely shaken. There isrnno reason for American administratorsrnand judges to notice the popular will, unlessrnit can prevail against them.rnA final point: like other neoconservatives,rnD’Souza divides the civil rightsrnmovement into separate phases that dornnot overlap. This enables him to arguernthat Jack Kemp “spoke wisely” when herndeplored the failure of Republicans torn”have been there on the freedom marchesrnand bus rides.” D’Souza indicates hisrnown support for such activities, but devotesrnmuch of the rest of the book tornlamenting the subsequent turns of therncivil rights movement. Liberals are right,rnhowever, to insist upon the continuity inrncivil rights leadership and goals—and alsornthe use of incremental strategy in empoweringrnblacks, and the state as theirrnprotector. To maintain the illusion ofrndiscontinuity in the civil rights program,rnD’Souza presents two Martin LutherrnKings: the good King who advocated arncolor-blind society, and the bad one, thernembittered crusader who by the late 60’srnwas groping toward quotas. But this biographicalrndisjunction is fictitious. Kingrnhad called for white reparations to blacksrnby the early 60’s, before he proclaimedrnhis “dream” on the Washington marchrnin 1964. And inasmuch as King was a socialistrninfluenced by liberation theology,rnit is also misleading to associate him withrna capitalist meritocracy that he consistentlyrnopposed.rnPaul Gottfried is a professor ofrnhumanities at EUzabethtown Collegernin Pennsylvania.rnCircumventionsrnand Subversionsrnby George W. CareyrnThe New Color Line: How Quotasrnand Privilege Destroy Democracyrnby Paul Craig Roberts andrnLawrence M. StrattonrnWashington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing;rn2i7 pp., $24.95rnThe basic concerns of this book gornwell beyond detailing how the originalrngoals of the civil rights movementrnhave been shamelessly perverted by therncourts and bureaucracy. The authorsrnshow in some detail how the courts andrnbureaucracy acting iir tandem have endorsedrnquotas and set asides, policiesrnthat now make race and sex “determiningrnfactors” in private employment decisions,rnwhich is contrary to the plain languagernand legislative intent of the CivilrnRights Act of 1964. But the lasting valuernof this work relates to its thesis that ourrncivil rights policies involve enormousrncosts, not the least of which is the totalrnabandonment of the fundamental valuesrnand practices of our Western liberal heritage.rnViewed from a wider perspective,rnthis book is a case study that points outrnconcretely in the area of civil rights whatrnmany Americans sense only vaguely withrnregard to a wide range of policy concerns:rn34/CHRONICLESrnrnrn