But among blacks whom I engage in the book, C. Eric Lincoln, Gerald Early, Orlando Patterson, James A. McPherson, and Glenn Loury all stand out in this way. I think that a lot of ordinary blacks and whites conduct themselves this way every day and are moving us forward. The ground is shifting under our feet. We should embrace the fact that it's happening. We shouldn't fear that if race lost all its value as a distinction among people, we would suddenly have nothing to share.
Human beings are deeper and more protean than that.
And the development of an American civilization or culture worthy of that depth depends on our letting go of race as its organizing principle. In another, longer book, I hope to tell some wonderful story or stories, and to advance some line of thinking to evoke our common destiny. I'm not by any means certain that we are going to pull it off. Liberals have no defenses against such perils, as Sandel shows. That's what I hope to write about in some way.