Having watched her even-handed reporting on TV, I assumed I would--in light of the title--get a fair-minded, non-hypey exploration of the complicated issues related to African-Americans. Instead, I got a simplistic, incredibly biased polemic. She distorts numbers and contorts and withholds facts to prove her points. Don't waste your money.

Throughout much of this book, Chideya uses a very quantitative approach -with plenty of statistics- to prove her arguments. In my opinon though, she often doesn't supply all the pertinent stats, and occasionally draws conclusions that are either too simplistic or not suggested by the figures she uses. In all, I didn't feel like my own opinions were firmly challenged while reading this book.

An excellent book. It smashes the political lies and rhetoric and presents a staggeringly different side of things. I recommend this book for African Americans who think that we're all doomed or "can't do right". I recommend this book to Caucasians who think that black people are dreaming up racism, and who think that we're all welfare junkies. Chideya also presents statistics that should make everyone ask more questions. If this book doesn't make you want to take political action, read it again, because you missed something!

I really wanted to like this book. Ms. Chideya is very likable and connects to many of the kids in her book. The problem is she dismisses people who don't share her view points out of hand. My biggest problem with her book is that she is adamant that Affirmative Action is the only possible solution to racism, but she fails to provide any proof and dismisses those who think otherwise as racist. With one notes exception she failed to discuss schools in which white students were the minority. (She did discuss the singular white student in an Oakland school, but thats not really multi-racial because one is not a group).

If i could speak with Ms. Chideya, I would suggest that for her next book she studies the relative successes and failures of her multi-ethnic gradutating class and study the benefits of affirmative action on that group. I think that she, and most affirmative action pundits, would be suprised to find out how much more class effects sucess than any factor. I suspect that there will be more commonalities in the demographics of her high-school class than differences because white, black or asian they all come from the same lower-middle class background.

Some people who read this book didn't vibe it, but that's because they can't handle the truth. Farai Chideya tells it like it is. You can tell she really gets down to the street level, interviewing teens who have crossed the US/Mexico border illegally; interviewing white supremacists and victims of hate crimes alike; interviewing folks who hate affirmative action and folks who got into college because of it. The truth about race in America is that we have a lot of growing to do. If you want the truth, read this book.

There are so many books that deal with race these days from a purely clinical perspective. And Chideya certainly does her research. The thesis of her book is that in 50 years--according to the best numbers from the U.S. Census--there will be more non-white Americans than whites. That's going to totally flip the script on race relations.

But where she really shines is bringing out the stories of real people. I was totally brought to tears by the story of LaShunda Prescott, a woman who struggled through U.C. Berkeley while she had to help raise the child of her crack-addicted sister. She also shows a suprising amount of understanding for the economic disenfranchisement of white supremacists, though! (You have to this book to understand her point... how these folks take their beefs with America and instead of blaming big corporations and the government blame black folks and immigrants instead.)

This reporter is courageous. Anybody who can hang with Klansmen and gang bangers in order to get the story is really on point.