Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It

Author - Juan Williams ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Three Rivers Press was reviewed on 20-Oct-2008.

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1) Paperback Book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It by Three Rivers Press. Juan William´s worshipful paean to Bill Cosby is proof that class trumps race in America, or to put it another way, the rich are neither white nor black, they are green. Juan´s book, with its attacks on alleged `black culture´ problems could easily have been written by David Duke, whose racist rhetoric uses similar disguise these days. Tiresome and insipid as the `blame the victim´ rhetoric is, it is not as loathsome as the hero worship lauded on the undeserving Cosby, whose own childish outburst would be forgivable but for its repletion. Williams and Cosby have both become spokesman and apologists for the wealthy and the system of exploitation that is in the truth the cause of the very problems they allegedly deplore. But sophisticated analysis is an anathema to these haters. For this perspective, stick to The Dispossessed Majority whose despicable author at least has the courage of his convictions.¤

2) Paperback Book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It by Three Rivers Press. This is a book designed to make people angry. In 2006, Bill Cosby was angry, and made several speeches proclaiming that American black people had not "kept their end of the deal." A high school drop-out rate at 50%, appaling rates of babies raised by single mothers, and a ganster culture, Cosby told, were perpetuating the exact cycle that the Civil Rights era worked to get black folks out of. Cosby expected to get people angry, but not at him. Instead of backing Cosby and working to do something about the situation, black ´leaders´ and academics got angry... at Cosby! Juan Williams "Enough" is a defense of, and expounder on, Cosby´s message.


Williams devotes chapters to the deplorable "do nothing" state of black "leadership," the black communities attitudes of deprecation or indifference to education, a rising crime rate and gang culture, the single-parenthood epidemic, etc. Yes, all of these things exist in other cultures (even white kids play at being thugs) but William´s point is that they are not only more prevelant in (poor) black culture but that there seems to be little outrage by so-called black ´leaders´ and those in a position to do anything about it.

Thorughout Williams highly rhetorical (in a good, galvanizing way) book is an underlying point. Williams makes a habit out of contrasting the self-determination and will of the Civil Rights era with the lack of will and direction of today´s situation. Then, you had black leaders like DuBois, Till, Garvey, and King stressing the importance of getting education, doing good, and giving the White Man every reason to eat his words. Today, you have a gangster culture that revels in proving stereotypes of "Mandingo, the muscle-bound slave, rutting with black whores," while black leaders quietly look on and criticize those who criticize this trend. Williams notes, more than a few times, that Martin Luther King said the same things Bill Cosby said about black people needing to earn respect, get educations, and do for themeselves. (Only then, as opposed to now, other black leaders applauded and reinforced this idea.)

Much of this book is simply common sense. The last two chapters offer very good, but basic, suggestions for a promising future for black people (really, all people can benefit from these.) Don´t have babies out of wedlock. Parents should be parents to their kids, rather than friends or pushovrs. Parents should demand that their kids learn. Buy books first, and basketball shoes later. Etc. Etc.

My biggest problem with the book is that it focuses too much on black leaders and their inaction. Instead, it seems like Williams should be talking to the people themselves. Asian-Americans don´t have ´leaders.´ Mexian-American don´t have ´leaders.´ I am not sure why such a diverse and multifaceted group as African-Americans need ´leaders´ to tell them what should be some of the common-sensical things Williams is saying. (Yes, everyone needs role models, but since when has Jesse Jackson been anyone´s role model? A role model and a leader are different.)

I also confess that I got a bit bored of the book after a while. While Williams´ message is very important, it did have the tendency to sound like a screed after a while. Of course, it is partly a screed, but the fact is that such things have been said before many times (by authors like John McWhorter, Shelby Steele, and Stanley Crouch). While the message is one that needs to, and isn´t being, heard, Williams´s book offers nothing that hasn´t been offered in other books. It does not stand out, and my prediction is that it will sadly not be read by those who would benefit from reading it the most.

[Lest anyone question the fact that I am a white man writing about this book, I am also a white man that teaches in a smack-dab middle class black school. The problems that Williams addresses are near and dear to me and, sadly, are not limited only to the poor.)

¤

3) Paperback Book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It by Three Rivers Press. I have to say that I agreed with about 95% of what Juan Williams said, but I read very little in the book that I hadn´t read before. Furthermore, when Williams makes a point, say "black people can´t blame others for a lack of discipline," he makes that point again, and again, and again until I felt like saying "Enough!" He can belabor a simple point into four pages.

The book is largely a followup, perhaps even tribute, to Bill Cosby´s speeches on black responsibility. Cosby has a way of making a sharp point that grabs your attention in one sentence whereas Williams takes two pages. I wish Williams could have fleshed out Cosby´s points better, but too often he just repeated them in more words.

Cosby had a great speech, but the line "The White Man, he´s laughing -- got to be laughing" really annoyed me. I´m white and not laughing. Does Cosby think white people love to see black people destroying themselves?! I have to think he was using that to get the attention of the black audience, not that he believed it. Still, it was an ugly thing to say. I´m a white, very conservative, and I want every single person to succeed and live up to his or her fullest potential.

Williams is a liberal, so the book is somewhat biased in that direction. Nothing wrong with that, but don´t expect this to be a conservative conversion. He bashes Ronald Reagan ("marginalized young people in Ronald Reagan´s America") and comes just short of calling conservatives racists a couple times. His view is often an us-versus-them attitude: "Here´s an idea: Bill Cosby for police chief of Black America." I just want one America, E. Pluribus Unum, not Black America, Asian America, White America, Latino America, ...

I thought he took a rather cheap shot at William Bennett regarding his comments about "aborting every black baby." I reread Bennett´s comments, and for someone in the public eye, Bennett should have known better. Bennett was making an extreme example to illustrate the ridiculousness of some arguments, not advocating doing so!

All that said, if your library has the book, check it out. I found a few interesting nuggets. He did a good job at explaining how black leaders thought after the Civil War and into the 1900s, and I found some of those parts fascinating.¤

4) Paperback Book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It by Three Rivers Press. This book was one that far exceeded my expectations. I came in to expecting to find the work of an elitist conservative what I found instead was the calm voice of an everyday normal man. He is no patsy either for slick attempts to repair race relations even going as far as to strike down idiotic proposals for reperations by arguing that both conservatives and liberals advocating reparations are just both plain wrong. Even if you agree with his points or not give him a chance to stake his positions, you may be surprised to find yourself agreeing with him after everything is said and done.¤

5) Paperback Book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It by Three Rivers Press. This book is sensational--Juan does a great job, and his insights hit the nail right on the head; amazing--he says exactly what others are either too afraid to say, or just not insightful enough to see. Juan does a great job in presenting the ideologies brought forth by his so- called ´phony leaders´. He introduces the ideas of Bill Cosby in a front and center manner. No doubt this book could cause some controversy, but Juan hits the nail on the head every sentence. A definite ´must read´!¤

6) Paperback Book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It by Three Rivers Press. 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.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 17-Nov-2008, 030733824X9780307338242, 510-4X0-410-740-260-J1B-LMB-V0B-8

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