In Enough, Juan Williams issues a lucid, impassioned clarion callto do the right thing now, before we travel so far off the gloriouspath set by generations of civil rights heroes that there can be nomore reaching back to offer a hand and rescue those being leftbehind.
Half a century after brave Americans took to the streets to
raise the bar of opportunity for all races, Juan Williams writes
that too many black Americans are in crisis—caught in a twisted
hip-hop culture, dropping out of school, ending up in jail, having
babies when they are not ready to be parents, and falling to the
bottom in twenty-first-century global economic competition.
In Enough, Juan Williams issues a lucid, impassioned clarion call
to do the right thing now, before we travel so far off the glorious
path set by generations of civil rights heroes that there can be no
more reaching back to offer a hand and rescue those being left
behind.
Inspired by Bill Cosby’s now famous speech at the NAACP gala
celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Brown decision
integrating schools, Williams makes the case that while there is
still racism, it is way past time for black Americans to open their
eyes to the “culture of failure” that exists within their
community. He raises the banner of proud black traditional
values—self-help, strong families, and belief in God—that sustained
black people through generations of oppression and flowered in the
exhilarating promise of the modern civil rights movement. Williams
asks what happened to keeping our eyes on the prize by proving the
case for equality with black excellence and achievement.
He takes particular aim at prominent black leaders—from Al
Sharpton to Jesse Jackson to Marion Barry. Williams exposes the
call for reparations as an act of futility, a detour into
self-pity; he condemns the “Stop Snitching” campaign as nothing
more than a surrender to criminals; and he decries the
glorification of materialism, misogyny, and murder as a corruption
of a rich black culture, a tragic turn into pornographic excess
that is hurting young black minds, especially among the poor.
Reinforcing his incisive observations with solid research and
alarming statistical data, Williams offers a concrete plan for
overcoming the obstacles that now stand in the way of African
Americans’ full participation in the nation’s freedom and
prosperity. Certain to be widely discussed and vehemently debated,
Enough is a bold, perceptive, solution-based look at African
American life, culture, and politics today.
From the Hardcover edition.