Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Now? : Multicultural Conservatism in America

by Dillard, Angela D.

• ISBN13: 9780814719404
• ISBN10: 0814719406
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-03-01
• Publisher: New York University Press

Summary

Smart and thoughtful . . . Perceptive--The Women's Review of BooksOne does not associate scholars with perfect timing, news-wise, but Angela D. Dillard's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Now? could not be more of the moment.--New York Times Book ReviewAn excellent overview of this new movement.--The New RepublicIf you, like many, marveled that George W. Bush not only did but could put together a cabinet and staff that was racially diverse as well as fiscally and morally conservative, here's a book you'll want to read.--Ms. magazineIn Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Now? Angela Dillard offers the first comparative analysis of a conservatism which today cuts across the boundaries of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.To be an African-American and a conservative, or a Latino who is also a conservative and a homosexual, is to occupy an awkward and contested political position. Dillard explores the philosophies, politics, and motivation of minority conservatives such as Ward Connerly, Glenn Loury, Linda Chavez, Clarence Thomas, and Bruce Bawer, as well as their tepid reception by both the Left and Right. Welcomed cautiously by the conservative movement, they have also frequently been excoriated by those African Americans, Latinos, women, and homosexuals who view their conservatism as betrayal.Dillard's comprehensive study, among the first to take the history and political implications of multicultural conservatism seriously, is a vital source for understanding contemporary American conservatism in all its forms.

Table of Contents

Preface: The Problem of Definition	ix
Introduction	1	(23)
Malcolm X's Words in Clarence Thomas's Mouth: Black Conservatives and the Making of an Intellectual Tradition	24	(32)
Toward a Politics of Assimilation: Multicultural Conservatism and the Assault on the Civil Rights Establishment	56	(43)
``I Write Myself, Therefore I Am'': Multicultural Conservatism and the Political Art of Autobiography	99	(38)
Strange Bedfellows: Gender, Sexuality, and ``Family Values''	137	(34)
Conclusion: A Multicultural Right? Prospects and Pitfalls	171	(12)
Notes	183	(36)
Bibliography	219	(14)
Index	233	(14)
About the Author	247