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The L.A. Riots
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To the Editor:
Congratulations on the three splendid articles in your July issue [“After Los Angeles”: “How the Rioters Won” by Midge Decter; “The Legacy of the 60's” by Charles Murray”; and “Is White Racism the Problem?” by Arch Puddington]. I particularly appreciated Midge Decter’s description of the tragicomic reactions of some of our pontificating media stars, self-immolating liberal intellectuals, and self-promoting politicians. No better example of the pervasive denial of reality (the billions poured into the bottomless maw of essentially black entitlement and affirmative-action programs; the refusal to acknowledge real progress made by working- and middle-class blacks, etc.) need be sought than Andrew Hacker’s new book, Two Nations, so brilliantly dissected by Arch Puddington.
When I attended Columbia College (political light-years ago), I was privileged to attend a number of lectures by Mr. Hacker’s father, Louis. Time may have fogged my recollection of his rather caustic social and economic commentary, but I recall that his remarks were always informed by a lively intelligence and sense of reality. It is this sense of the real world and the real people who inhabit it that seems to have failed the liberal elites (I wish there were a better term but none comes to mind) who have so indelibly marked the social, moral, and political agenda of the generation (my own) that came between Louis Hacker’s lecture room and Andrew Hacker’s new book.
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