Carol M. Swain, The New White Nationalism in America:
Its Challenge to Integration. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002, 526 pages, ISBN 0-521-80886-3, $30.00.
Paul M. Kellstedt, The Mass Media and the Dynamics of
American Racial Attitudes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003, 174 pages, ISBN 0-521-82171-1, $60.00.
Carol M. Swain's book, The New White Nationalism in
American: Its Challenge to Integration, is an ambitious and, in
many ways, novel blend of traditional social science and social
advocacy. At the outset, Swain informs the reader that this book breaks
with “… the tradition of impersonal, value-free social
science insofar as I do not pretend to be neutral and do not hesitate
to interject many personal observations and comments into the body of
the text.” She does not disappoint on this score. This nearly
500-page book combines original interviews and survey and focus group
data, with Swain's reflections on a range of topics including
reparations, affirmative action, racial hate crimes, and the redemptive
power of religion. To Swain's credit, she also steps outside her
role as a (nominally) dispassionate social scientist to offer a range
of policy prescriptions near the end of her book to combat what she
views as the potentially alarming growth of the White power movement.
In many ways, Swain's passion for her subject is refreshing, and
even commendable. Unfortunately, her passion is also the source of the
principal weakness of this book: its inability to match its
uncompromising rhetoric with persuasive, or even plausible, supportive
evidence for readers who do not already agree with her arguments.