When Affirmative Action Was White: The Untold History of Racial Inequality in 20th Century America - Essential Reading for Civil Rights Studies & Social Justice Discussions

The book is extremely well-written, and the sources are very well documented. Without question, the federal government chose for a couple of decades in the 20th century to massively invest in its citizens, but because of the machinations of some (mostly) Southern US politicians, opportunities for African-americans under these programs were severely restricted. These local bosses wanted to keep the sources of cheap and docile wage labor in place in their Southern states so as to keep their local hierarchies of race and class intact - it may have been a small totem pole in their communities, but at least they were on top of it and in control!In contrast, many poorer whites outside the South were able to leapfrog into the middle class, and many descendants of immigrant Jews, Italians, and Slavs were able to become more fully integrated into US social and economic life. This book obviously makes some whites defensive, because the sources of this book demonstrate that they had LOTS of help achieving middle class status, and they would rather that we all settle into a collective amnesia about these facts regarding their past receipt of government assistance. (Well, maybe it isn't really amnesia -- some of these past beneficiaries will at present fight for more largesse under Social Security and Medicare). But they will still not admit they got government help - no!, they say, we earned it!!I would differ from the author's statistical emphasis on averaging together all whites versus all African-americans, as this would obscure important differences of class within races. A frequent criticism of present affirmative action programs is that its beneficiaries are usually from amongst the more affluent and middle class members of the targeted groups, while the more poor segments continue to be shut out. Perhaps a different type of affirmative-action, based on focusing on underprivileged classes (irrespective of race) make more sense for 21st century America. That type of affirmative action would look a lot more like the affirmative action described in Mr. Katznelson's book.