A talk with Gene Dattel, author of Reckoning with Race: America’s Failure. Amidst continuing racial unrest and endless calls for a “national conversation,” why is it that Americans cannot have a frank discussion about race?  In Reckoning with Race: America’s Failure, Gene Dattel confronts America’s seemingly intractable problem with an enlightening and provocative analysis.  He examines racial issues through black voices. Tracing American racial issues from the early nineteenth century to the present day, he shows why the mass of black Americans have failed to enter the economic mainstream and take their place as first-class citizens. The book deals with the past – injustices, discrimination, the lack of mobility, and the obstacles to assimilation.

“Reckoning with Race” confronts America’s most intractable problem and why the nation cannot have a frank discussion about race. It examines racial issues through black voices. The book outlines in a provocative, novel manner the black America’s experience from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present. It explodes myths about the South as America’s exclusive racial scapegoat. The book moves to the Great Migration north, the urban ghettos, and current events and conditions.