❝ But even today, matters about Reconstruction do not remain simple — a context to which Daniel Brook responds in his new book, The Accident of Color: A Story of Race and Reconstruction. The consensus today is that it was not so much class but the fundamental fact of whiteness that mattered. Southern antebellum racism was simply too intransigent. And so we draw a line — straight from the racist backlash to Reconstruction all the way to the current presidency as a response to the previous one. Race resentment is the crux. Adam Gopnik, writing in The New Yorker, puts this succinctly, connecting the consensus just as he dispenses with Du Bois' psychological wage: [NPR.org]
DANIEL BROOK is a journalist & author of A History of Future Cities on building modern modernities. Watch him talk about his book below, and learn more about booking Bob for your next event today. |