While some may see a remarkable journey in all this, the Thernstroms say the truth is that they never left home. When it comes to race, they say, the issue is not how much they have changed, but how much the left has shifted from colorblindness to color consciousness. And it still seems to be the ideal to me. The Thernstroms' book argues not only that preferences are divisive but also, implicitly, that they are no longer necessary. We do say that they haven't made as much difference as is widely attributed to them and that they carry with them a very high cost.
Preferences flunk that test.
Since publication of the book, the attacks from some on the left have been unrelenting. But I think there are some participants, on the far left and the far right, who are too shrill and ideological to be helpful. Some critics contend that the Thernstroms, in trying to demonstrate dramatic black progress and a lessening of white prejudice, misinterpreted the mountain of data in their book. Stop your griping. Here are the data.